blue23rose: Your property is absolutely beautiful! It's hard to believe you just got into gardening @ 12 years ago ... what a great eye you have for texture and color. I used to collect birdhouses and those your hubby made for you are great, they really add a lot to the garden and I know those birdies appreciate them! Thank you so much for sharing your lovely garden with us!

What a lovely group of gardens.Soo many roses.

Vickie, lived in Texas 41 years, ever since I was 14. Hadn't been back north since 1987. Now, for the first time in two decades, I had a deep, reverberating spasm of homesickness for my grandmother's house in Lakeville. Guess one never really loses that sense of recognition (even though we were on the other end of the state from you, the photos still show a landscape close enough to 'see' it ) Your gardens are elegant and graceful and welcoming. Thank you for taking the time to show us.

Absolutely gorgeous!

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks plantladylin, rocklady, ge1836, lovemyhouse, and chelle!

plantladylin, I have never thought of myself as being able to put together textures and colors. Sometimes things just work together and fall into place and look right. I have had plants that I thought would be beautiful in one place and they didn't thrive. Move them and they are happy as a lark. I'm listening to the birds as I write this. We actually have the windows open today it is that beautiful outside!

ge1836, I love my Milwaukee Calatrava roses. They smell wonderful. Even though I have to fight japanese beetles every year, I just can't seem to give up on roses.

lovemyhouse, I don't think one ever forgets their first home no matter how far we roam. I just heard a song (or should I say I just really listened to the words) the other day by Jason Aldean called Fly Over States that mentions several states between New York and California. It made me appreciate the area we live in.

Oh my ... I sure wish it were cool enough to have the windows open here. It was 80º at nine o'clock this morning and although it's supposed to be cooler today than the past few days of mid 90's, our high today is still supposed to be @ 89-90 with high humidity which makes it feel so much hotter. I look forward to Nov/Dec when hopefully we will get a little respite from this heat. I don't know how folks out west deal with temp's in the low and mid one hundreds! I can't complain too much about our weather though ... at least we've finally gotten some much needed rain the past couple of days!

Love that Jason Aldean song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Glad you got some rain:) We got over 2 inches about 2 weeks ago and it has really made a difference in the weather here. More humidity, but I'll take it! The flowers have done so much better.

Thanks for the tour. Nice transformation.

Thanks, jmorth. When we bought the place, I certainly didn't think it would end up looking like this:)