In the spirit of getting to know each other, would you mind sharing a wide view photo of your front and back yards? This is probably easier for some than for others. Easy for me because my square footage is very small. You may have a much bigger property and so it may take a few more pictures.

I have a front yard:


and a back yard:

Typ what a great idea! Would love to see some close ups of your hostas! I'll share photos from my garden when I'm at my home computer this evening.

My garden areas tend to be scattered across my yard. Here are a few areas by the back patio:







As you can see, I tend to go for the haphazard, overgrown cottage garden look--LOL! I also have been trying to choose a lot of plants that the pollinators like (yarrow, agastache, Rudbeckia, and so on), but am not always successful when I'm face to face in the nursery with some gorgeous plant that I know the pollinators will never visit, but I want it anyway! :-)

Then I have a difficult back area that gets morning shade but full afternoon sun. I've tried to create spots of sun and shade there.





I've also been working on new garden space in the middle of my backyard, near the birdfeeder:




Finally, I have some garden space in the front yard:





So that is basically my yard--the sunny beds around my patio, the difficult back areas, the new space around the feeder, and the front.

Really good idea, Karen. Some really good solutions and ideas present themselves when we look at gardens this way. The front of my house is ground level so we can see some of the front gardens that are very close to the house. The back area is decked and, unless one is looking over the railing, none of the plants around it can be seen from the deck. This encouraged us to dump some amended topsoil onto areas further away from the house so that we can at least see some gardens from afar. Most of our gardens are not dug in, but raised because we have rocky clay for natural soil. Most of my plants are grown from seed (indoors, and outdoors in translucent gallon milk containers.) and from purchases with the co-ops that have been offered thru garden clubs. Once I had a plan for an organized type of garden. Now my plan is to find room anywhere for my newest acquirement, so now it looks like some kind of jungle!!

thanks for the tour, Roses--I love your gardens! I love what you'e done with the rockiness and the mix of different plants. As you can tell from my photos, I'm in a similar place as you with having intentions of being organized, but then ending up with profusion everywhere!

The hills and trees in the background look really nice too. (sigh) I wish we could live out of the city a bit more but convenience to work and my daughter's school wins out for us...

@TypWC, the smaller size of your space means that you have to be super creative with the annuals! Do you use containers, too? Close-up photos, please! :-)

Okay, so *how* do you all get the photos to be side by side instead of just in a long row??

To get the pictures sid by side.....when you upload the SECOND ONE..you put your curser right in front of the "[" and use the "backspace" to bring it right up against the end of the first "]". I think that usually 2 or 3 fit next to each other before you start on another line.

ahhh, let's try it:




all right! thanks so much, Teri!

Your welcome. I never get tired of looking at all your blooms.

Beautiful, everyone beautiful.

This is really not the best time for pictures of my front yard but I just took some anyway.

Front yard from the street.



front left


front right


Moving around to the back yard here is a raised garden section I call the Terraces that is near my kitchen door.


My back patio that has my little dogs exercise pen.


My front side yard pond.

I love the "secret garden" look of the terraces.

Those terraces need weeding badly. But then always something to do in the garden.

Rita, they are more beautiful than I remembered. How do you ever keep up with all the weeding especially in the humidity and heat? Thanks so much for sharing. I hope you keep dropping in and showing us the bulbs you plant this year????Or have you decided not to plant any...I bet.

No, no bulbs this fall. I have had enough of all the work each fall of planting bulbs so no bulbs this year.

I am pretty much used to the humid summers here so just work whenever I can.

I think I heard you say that last year.....then you ordered another thousand or more.............

Last year I ordered early then after the bulbs came and I planted them all I ordered more and planted those. This year I have not ordered any and I am not gonna order any. I figure I deserve a break this fall from the usual lots of work planting everything.

I agree and your place is such a showplace in the Spring when those babies bloom. Here's hoping our winter is not one of those freeze bulbs winters.

Oh Geez, I sure do hope we don't get another really nasty winter again like this past one!

Rita, I love those terraces! They are gorgeous! Wish I could plan some of those for my space! And the water lily pond is lovely.

I hear you about the bulb planting! I'm getting a few more bulbs for this fall but not nearly what I had last year. Wow, a thousand bulbs! I can see why you're taking a break now! Must be gorgeous in the spring! I'm looking forward to seeing the photos!

Thanks for the tour, and looking forward to seeing more photos!

I had to put terraces in many spots in my garden if I wanted usable space. I like the way it turned out!

It's beautiful!