Spring is my favorite time of the year, so these are the images that I will share with you. After all, aren't we all dreaming of spring right now? Most of these were taken in early to mid April 2011, though a few are in late March. We are located on 3+ hilly landscaped acres in NW Georgia. Most of these pictures are taken in the vicinity of a small cabin located down behind our house. The cabin is named the Shady Rest, thus the name of our garden---Shady Rest Gardens, an AHS Display Garden since 2009. David and I have done most of the work, though we sometimes hire a high school student to help in the spring mainly. I am a retired school teacher and counselor. David retired last May after 40 years as a high school teacher and coach; however, he is continuing to teach part time at a local Christian school. Our garden will be on the AHS Region 5 Spring Tour this June and the 2015 AHS National Convention Tour.

These pictures will be in no certain order. A pathway that David and I made. There is a gravel drive that circles down behind our house. You will see this driveway in some of the pictures.

We have lots of deciduous azaleas that we call "native azaleas" because some were dug from the woods in North GA. They can also be bought in the spring at local nurseries and big box stores. The blue flower is blue woodland phlox.

Rhododendron (later in April)

Sometimes the unplanned comes together and looks good, Creeping Jenny and primrose. Creeping Jenny will "creep" more than I might want, but it is easy to pull up and give away or sell at a club plant sale. I use it primarily for the yellow color

A view from the distance. I like using lots of plant material for color.

A closer view of the above view. Notice the mountain of pine straw bales at the very top left center still left to be put out!

The Shady Rest to the left. Daylilies are in the front, back, and one row by a flowing creek bed to the left of the cabin.

A view of the cabin from up the hill where there more terraced daylily beds.

Another view of the terraced beds.

A view of the terraced daylily beds as they begin going uphill.

A view from in front of the cabin.

Doris - Your place is simply beautiful!!!! Looks like a piece of Heaven!!!! I bet it looks amazing when everything is in bloom such as the daylilies!

Another view of the series of terraced daylily beds.

The hemlock is no longer there. It died of some type of scale infestation.

Another view from up the hill. We are blessed with many white dogwoods that were in the woods.

A daylily bed on the opposite side of the gravel drive across from the cabin. The split rail fence divides this area into two. There are clematis that grow on the fence and Japanese iris on the back side. Daylilies in all beds are planted by height.

Another view of the same bed. The statue is Diana, the huntress. We refer to this bed as Diana West and Diana East, depending on which side of the split rail fence a daylily is located.

Another view taken from the front of the cabin. The Lady Banks Rose is in need of a haircut and will get one once it blooms.

Hellebore. This picture was taken in February. The hellebores are starting to show some color outside now in early January.

Another hellebore. Free seeding. Blooms in January and February are always welcome. I should move some to other areas now.

Our neighbor Zoe posing next to a camellia at the cabin. She knows more about daylilies than other 9 year olds. She keeps me company in the garden and sometimes helps me. A couple of years ago her mother told me that she stands at her bedroom window watching for me so she can come over.

OT---

Ok tell me more about the scale your hemlock had. I have a large mature hemlock in my back yard on the NE corner of the house. Last summer LOTS of needles turned yellow and fell off. After they all fell off the tree looked find for the rest of the year and looks ok now. Although sparser needles. I looked it over and could not find any bugs or anything suspicious on it that I thought could be causing it. I am so afraid it is going to die, but I don't have the faintest idea what is wrong with it. We had plenty of rain last year and nothing going on that could have did that. Any ideas?

The evergreen clematis tries to overtake the conifer each spring. I just pull out the runners and redirect them back in the other direction on the split rail fence. This is another split rail fence in front of the cabin. The clematis is beautiful with white blooms in the spring and smells SO good!

Sedum planted in cheap thrift store shoes. The sedum will have tiny yellow blooms.

My favorite camellia.

Contorted Filbert AKA Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (great for winter garden interest)

I plan to start reworking this area soon. This was spring 2011 and it has now grown up too much. There is a small Gold Mop Cypress in there that cannot be seen in this picture. It is now tall and overpowers this area. I will probably leave it where it is and relocate some of the other shrubs (pink spirea, yellow arborvitae, and barberry to other areas and move a hydrangea downhill.) I think I will replace the row of daylilies in front with annuals or may mix in some miniature daylilies with the annuals. All the daylilies there have been moved out except for one. On the other side are two yellow Knockout roses that will be moved out too.

Winter Daphne smells delicious!

Bashful Betsy hiding.

More spring color. Loropetalum, redbud and dogwood trees.

Japanese maple with hellebores and May Apples (podophyllum) underneath

Bleeding Heart, I should add more!

Sagae hosta The cabin is surrounded on three sides with clumps of hosta.

A view of Diana's bed with the sprinkler on in April. We water in the spring if we don't a good rain every week. We put in a well a few years ago for the sole purpose of watering the flowers, namely the daylilies. It has proven to be money well spent.

Lady Banks Rose in full bloom.

Lady Bank Rose has finished blooming and has had its annual haircut by April 21st.

Another view of the terraced daylily beds, just a few
weeks later. How quickly everything grows and changes in April. I always feel like I am fighting a wildfire to get all the work done on a very tight schedule.

Simply amazing !!!!!!! I wouldn't be able to keep up with all of that

No doubt, I wish I had a magic wand lol

and a wad of money!

Fabulous!!! Love your garden!

Camellia, Japanese maple, spirea, Golden Euonymous, Kaleidoscope Abelia. I like color in the garden and use shrubbery to get it. In the winter we have different evergreens to give us structure and color.

Here are two new daylily beds built for doubles. Tets went in the far end and dips on the upper end. We divide our daylilies in beds according to ploidy for hybridizing.

A view from a different angle. The tree to the left is a Deodora Cedar.

A slightly different angle.

Savannah's Garden of Good and Evil statue

Deciduous Azaleas. We really like them. They put on a show in April. We have about 25 more in gallon pots to be planted within a couple of months, I hope. We have another series of terraced walls to be built north of where all these pictures were taken..

More Deciduous Azaleas.

White Deciduous Azalea

Evergreen azaleas & mahonias, probably taken late April. The mahonias bloomed in February and the clusters of grape berries are evident.

Butterfly Japanese Maple

Homestead Verbena This verbena puts on a show and usually lives through only one winter here if not too cold.

Pink Columbine Columbine freely sows here and comes up in nearby daylily beds. If left in the beds, the columbine plants can smother out daylilies at times. They come up in pathways too. I have had to resort to digging them up and throwing them away. It pains me to do that. I should take the time now to move any small ones that are in the beds and pathways. I could pot them up for planting later or sell at club plant sales. They are so pretty when they bloom.

Dutch Iris, one of several colors.

The only name I know is "Butter And Eggs". It is one of those pass-a-long plants that an elderly lady gave me years ago.

Japanese Iris What beauty JP iris can add to any garden!

Paul's Himalayan Musk Rose. This is a rambling rose that often is found climbing into trees. It is very fragrant and only blooms one time a year. Unfortunately, the sweet gum tree had to come down to give nearby daylilies more sun, and so the rose had to come out. If I find another location (and tree), I would add it back to our garden. This picture was taken 4-30-11.

American Pillar Rose. This is another climber that climbs in a dogwood tree and hangs over a goldfish/koi pond. We can see the reflection of the rose blooms in the water.

Tree Peony. I would like to add more colors; but, they are a bit pricey, and I do not have a place to plant them now. The yellow bush in the background is a deciduous azalea.

When we had the cabin built, David and I put in a dry creek bed with rocks on the east side. In late May 2011we finally completed the long, arduous task of making it a flowing creek bed. The water flows into a small pond about 3/4 of the way down the creek bed. The water is recirculated to the top of the creek bed. We added a waterfall to the small pond to create more water movement and sound and a metal bridge last winter to go over the creek bed just below the small pond. There are three goldfish in this pond.

Using wine bottles as a border of a daylily bed. We seem to have an unlimited supply of wine bottles that are given to us by friends and family. The building to the far right is our storage building and houses David's collection of kayaks. This fall 2013 we had all the trees cut down to the left of the storage building. This fall I planted daylilies and hydrangeas in this area. I moved our Wizard Of Oz daylilies to this area, too. I will be adding hostas and other shade plants to the back side of this bed. (I have many in pots awaiting planting this spring.) I have 3 Limelight Hydrangeas to move to this area once the ground thaws.

Yellow jasmine on a metal arbor that opens into what I call a "courtyard area" near Diana's bed. There is a cement table and two benches there plus more daylilies behind a wine bottle border and pots of blooming flowers.

The sun shines through the wine bottles.


This is all for now. I will add more pictures another time.

Frillylily said:OT---

Ok tell me more about the scale your hemlock had. I have a large mature hemlock in my back yard on the NE corner of the house. Last summer LOTS of needles turned yellow and fell off. After they all fell off the tree looked find for the rest of the year and looks ok now. Although sparser needles. I looked it over and could not find any bugs or anything suspicious on it that I thought could be causing it. I am so afraid it is going to die, but I don't have the faintest idea what is wrong with it. We had plenty of rain last year and nothing going on that could have did that. Any ideas?

I called it scale because that is what it looks like, but here is a link to what it was---hemlock woolly adelgid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
I should have treated the hemlock when I discovered this, because I found this infestation a couple of years before it died. Look closely at the limbs to see if you see anything that looks like the pictures on this link. I hope it does not spread to our other hemlocks. I should take a close look at our other ones. We are on the southern margin of where hemlocks will live.

Becky--Thank you. To be honest, I am so busy working outside when the daylilies are blooming and rushing to get as many pictures taken of blooms before the sun gets too high to really enjoy the blooms. We really need to downsize the number of daylilies that we have and get to where we have time to enjoy them. One day, maybe...

Michele---You are busy taking care of your daylilies and James Hall's. I am amazed at what all you get done! You do the work of at least two people. And then, you take the time to post pictures and offer advice to all of us here.

Frilly---David will tell you that I am always looking for bargains and checking out the clearance items. We start small and wait for plants to grow. Rooted cuttings save money. We give each other gifts of plants or garden related "tools" for birthdays and Christmas. My wish for Christmas was a tubeless tire wheel barrow. Often times our children give us gift cards to Lowe's and Home Depot. David loads and hauls in composted horse manure. We get free wood chips delivered from a local tree service. Then David wheelbarrows them to cover our pathways. After the wood chips have broken down over a couple of years, he shovels them up and wheelbarrows them to a new flowerbed. (See why I wanted a tubeless tire wheel barrow!) We are always looking for ways to stretch a dollar and save money. And, I hope that your hemlock perks up and does not have what ours had.

Betty---Thank you. I'll try to post more pictures from another spring.

Doris,

Thank you for the escape from my -4°, all-white outside world.

Outstanding garden, and more work than I want to think about.

Absolutely beautiful!

It truly is beautiful! And a sight for all our 'tired of winter' eyes.
Thank you.

Three acres+ of beauty. Wonderful to see such glory.

It has always been my dream to do this but the mid-sixties are rushing in thieving time.

Doris and David, we are all moving to "Shady Rest Gardens" to share in your piece of PARADISE!!! Beautiful and inviting!!

Thanks, Mike! I will have work gloves for everyone.