living room

Reply to: This has been one of my favorite threads of the year. I've really enjoyed seeing everyone's photos. The pictures you each share highlight each person's individual loves in the garden and they're all so beautiful and inspiring. Your gardens and photos are all so fabulous! I just went through my photo roll picking my favorites...and...there were 28 photos! Eek. So here's my attempt to whittle that down a little. I'm sure Houzz will make me do several posts to upload them all. Here's the beginning of the rose season with my two established roses, Madame Hardy and Boscobel. This is the one section of my garden that has been a flower bed for more than 1 or 2 seasons. You'll want to click on each photo to see full size. Houzz is doing funny things with cropping them into thumbnails. Accidental companions that I fell in love with. Boscobel with Madame Hardy in the background. The Madame fits right in with a wild cottage garden type mixed border. Isn't this rose perfection? The view from my living room window---when we bought the house it was just all grass--only the shed and the lilac existed. My favorite garden helper. I just fell in love with a wild mix of flowers. I forgot to plant these again this fall--they were so spectacular last spring! That same main bed, but in its overgrown August state of being. More of that bed, in August.

Q

Reply to: The Buff Beauty below spanned at least three fence sections, which would be approximately 24' total, so maybe 12' on either side of the center. Another was climbing a dwarf crape myrtle, up to about 10' and beyond, and started throwing out some very long canes -- removed because it was clearly going to totally overwhelm the tree and there was no room for it to be a shrub. Both own-root. This is zone 9b, so there's one difference. It was one of the few hybrid musks that actually bloom well here (summrs too hot for most of them - Cornelia and Felicia also do okay), but, still, there were just two significant flushes, spring and fall, and a scattering of blooms at other times. In April, on a cloudy day: Three years later, also in April, on a sunnier day:

Q

Reply to: Flowers, 12X12...Ye gads. I want to see some photos. That must be a beautiful sight. Hutchae, in your mild climate, I would think Eden would get quite, quite large. I think you've done an excellent job with her. Below are some pics of my gardening friend's Eden. She lives about 25 miles from here in the same zone as I do (7 arid in SW Idaho). You can see what's in store for you. I'm sorry these photos aren't the best--I was forced to take them at high noon--hence the glare and washed out look. Diane

Q