have a beautiful garden

My son helped out while my husband digged out the clay and I took out some weed and stones.’

...We’re still soo very far away from a beautiful garden…

This is a good place to sniff roses and write poems in the morning. It’s a bit dishevelled and weathered, but it’s spilling with blooms and herbs. There’s a table with an umbrella and weatherworn chairs behind the camera view.

It has been 105 degrees here for the last couple of days. No end in sight. Needless to say, my garden is wilting, wilting!!! And it’s wayyyy too hot to be working outside! Just have to try to water as best I can and see what damage has been done when it finally cools down. Hope it’s not going to stay this hot in July and August!

the thunderstorm snapped my pear tree in half. :( It was in the back pathway garden, and was a Mother’s Day gift from 3 years ago. So sad to lose it. We will have to replace it as the space really looks bare without a vertical presence there.

The lotus bloomed for the first time this year today!

on this goal! It seems I’ve been gardening nonstop for the past 10 days. I got new azaleas for the front and they are gorgeous! I ended up ripping up tons of the English Ivy (invasive! and ridiculous to remove!) and putting in a bed of perennials. This was the first time I’d attempted to plan and execute an entire bed from scratch. Usually I was filling in holes for the last 8 years… So I got my azaleas, yarrow, russian sage, salvia, garden phlox, creeping phlox, dianythus, catmint, and transplanted a few hostas from the backyard (I have about 100!?). SO it’s mostly blue and pink with the yellow accent from the yarrow. We’ll see when things progress how I did on figuring out the relative heights!
I’ve also gotten some stuff for my “woodland garden” as I call half my backyard which is pretty shady. Some different hostas (Halcyon), heuchera, creeping jenny, astilbe, and pachysandra to fill in parts where no grass will grow. Here is a woodland corner with my ferns, an azalea, and one of my birdhouses.

Here is the back side of my yard: more azaleas! You can see my peony about to burst into bloom behind it, and then some alliums and some starting-to-bloom irises.
I also rejuventated my “herb garden” which has been totally overtaken by mint. I had to dig up much of it to create room, so I had to make mojitos :) I put in some basil, sage, rosemary, and cilantro.

We’ve had wind and we’ve had rain, then we’ve had wind and rain. Not too many pretty days to work, but I did get finished with the side ‘walkway’ garden (except I want to throw in some dayliles), and I have almost (but not quite) finished mulching the back rose bed. Still have lots of work left to do in the butterfly garden. ‘sigh’ When this rain lets up (in another week?), then I’ll start working again. Course, I am not complaining about the rain – my plants all need it and we will wish for it come summer, I’m sure!

With the rain confining me within warm, dry doors I have been day-dreaming about what I want my garden to look like when I have re-grown my green thumb, in a manner of speaking. With carpets of violets and baby’s tears, the cool marble of an ivy covered statue to the warm sunlight as it filters though the greenery of surrounding trees onto patches of pansies like Nan always grows. Bursts of colour from foxgloves and bluebells and “wild flowers” shaded by the ferns to roses of many a colour in full bloom. And tucked away in a corner, my little vegetable garden.

My garden is in decay and I feel just awful about it. One of the reasons we bought our home was because of the beautiful garden, but I just can’t seem to keep anything alive.

I’ve been semi-good about watering the roses, but recently I broke out in hives after spending time outside, so hubby suggested I keep away from our backyard. I swear the poor roses seem depress.

I stood in my “garden” yesterday and had a good look at it. The first thought that entered my head was “Its dead!” most of my garden had been turned into vegetable patches, that are starting to die out. I need to find a balance between vegetables and flowers.
* Sigh * When it stops raining I think I will go out and try to salvage what may remains amongst the decaying greenery, the rest can be compost. As they say, waste not, want not.