A stroll through my garden...

Who can look at a beautiful flower in bloom, and not smile?! It's amazing what a little color does for my mood these days.

If you've been reading my blog, we undertook landscaping our yard this year. It's been quite the task (I'd recommend doing it in stages if you have the patience or you get burned out quickly!). Many of the flowers are starting to bloom and I'm so excited to watch the plants grow over the next couple of years. I keep telling G that we can't move because the yard isn't going to look really good for about 5 years!! Mother Nature still has to work some magic out there.

But here is a glimpse at some of the plants growing in my backyard...

This is a hibiscus plant that looks like an ornamental tree, on my patio. Love the large 4-5" blossoms!

Gerbera daisies! We planted red, yellow, orange and pink!

 

Here's what's growing in my shade garden:

 

The pink, green and white large leaves are Caladiums. I just love the rich texture of the large leaves. We started these indoors (bulbs) so they would be ready by the time it was warm enough to plant outside.

Coral bells. They come in different colors but I love the look of the purple ones.

These are Siberian Bugloss "Looking Glass". They have heart shaped pedals with a silvery sheen.

  
 
 I love the purple stem on these ferns, and the leaves almost have a silvery tint.

 

Here's part of my vegetable garden:

Gordon started container gardening this year. I learned about square foot gardening and convinced him to let me try my hand at gardening (in the past, he's always done it). So I planted my garden and he quickly decided to move his container plants into my boxes. We have tomatoes, green peppers, red peppers, watermelon, cucumbers, green beans, pumpkins, zuchinni, yellow squash, carrots, green onions and lettuce. I think I'll blog more about gardening later, because I've learned quite a bit about cold season crops, warm season crops, and getting three harvests in one year.

 

This is my part shade garden:

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Hydrangeas-we have several in the yard, some pink, some blue, some white flowers

This is a Mandevilla and it's on my arbor. Problem is that it didn't have tag on it when I purchased it, to tell me that it's not hardy in our zone. So I'll have to plant something else next year.

 

I have several different hostas-love the large foliage.

 

This is ornamental grass. Adds a contrast to the large leaves of the hostas. I like that it's compact. Great for borders.

 

Lilies-quickly becoming my favorite flower. We have at least 4 different ones right now, and plan on adding more. Got the orange ones for free a couple years ago. They are situated between my lilac bushes.

This is the newest one. It's one of several daylily varieties that we have.

These are the Stella de Oro, the most popular daylily around here. You'll see them everywhere. I love the thinner leaves that grow from spring till a hard frost. They constantly bloom and I like the fact that the stem f the flower isn't 3 feet above the plant. That's what bugs me about most lilies-like the orange ones we have-the green leaves of the plant stand about 2' tall, but the lily stem grows more than 2 feet above that. The stems on the Stellas are only as tall as the leaves.

 

Two years ago I attempted to grow roses-and I mean, attempted. They blossomed the first year and then got black rot and died. Money wasted. With some research, I found out that they don't grow well out here. The nursery suggested that if I wanted roses, to grow "knockout" roses. I chose the double knockouts. I have 5 bushes and they are doing fabulous! They are more wild looking, but anything to me is better than nothing.

Well, that's some of the plants. We have geraniums, impatiens, petunias, shasta daisies, cosmos, and star gazer lilies too. I tried my hand at a cutting garden, but the birds keep eating the seeds and I can't get the flowers I want, as plants. So I may just have to change plans and do something else with that corner of the yard. Once the painter is done and out of the way, I'll take pictures of the different sections so you can actually see the plants grouped with each other. Just remember, everything was planted this year so they are very small, and some may not flower this year because I got them in a little late. But next year should be even better!