Hello from the farm,
I'm a little late sending out my weekly musings. Winter means life suddenly starts operating according to a different set of rules. Between the Hotel, Cocina and everything happening on the farm, the days seem to disappear at an alarming rate.
Meanwhile, boxes keep arriving at the farm. Boxes full of peonies and plants for the hedgerows.
The hedgerows are one of the projects I'm most excited about. Over the next few years they'll provide flowers, foliage, berries and habitat for birds and beneficial insects. There will be lilacs, viburnums, crab apples, smoke bush, elderberries, sloe, hawthorns, berries, rambling roses, and lots of other bits and pieces; all planted in 140m long rows on the edge of the flower farm.
Farming at this time of year requires a remarkable amount of optimism because most of what you're working with doesn't look particularly impressive. Right now the hedgerow plants mostly resemble sticks. Very expensive sticks. The peonies arrived looking like something you accidentally dug up while gardening, yet given enough patience, they will eventually become some of the most beautiful flowers in the world.
I have been obsessed with flowering trees since I was a little girl reading Anne of Green Gables. So I also have to plant about 50 flowering cherries and ornamental peaches (3 different coloured blossoms on one tree). I'm very excited for these as they are an absolute vision come spring.
You plan for a future version of the farm that, with enough work and a little luck, eventually arrives. In the meantime, there is planting to do. Lots and lots of planting.
