When replying to Mona in the weather thread, I said "but I dont have a garden, so..." this led her to ask me if I have plants

The answer is yes, but I posted what I did because I don't consider my yard a "garden," -- it's my yard. Gardens are planned, well-kept, cared for, weeded, fertilized, agonized over, appreciated and enjoyed, among other things. My yard is appreciated and enjoyed, by both me and various critters, including my dogs.

I go out with the weed-whacker in the back yard when the weeds are tickling the dogs bellies (I have greyhounds - they have LONG legs). I weed-whack the utility meter areas out of consideration for the meter readers. The rest of it depends on my state of mind, the weather, etc. My favorite neighbor mows my gargantual front yard cause he has a zero-turn riding mower and loves to mow. My back yard belongs to the dogs, and is as much pine cones and wood chips as it is weeds and dog-poop. So I weed-whack, and hope I don't whack the dog-poop (and yes, I've done it).

My front yard was nothing but Zoysia grass when I moved in (with a strip of weeds near the curb). The weeds are still there, but the yard has been broken up into islands/beds with something like 20 trees scattered around in various stages of growth. I'm hoping that someday, some of them will shade my southwestern exposure front porch/home office area. But at this point, none of them have been in the ground more than 3 years, so not much shade yet.

The Forest Pansy Redbud died, but one of the suckers from its root system survived and blooms for me (standard redbud, not forest pansy, but strong and healthy so I don't much care).





I've planted somewhere in the neighborhood of 400-500 spring bulbs in various places around the front yard...LOVE it in the spring when they bloom. This year, I've scattered daylilies among them. In this picture, the bit with the landscape timbers is new..I expanded that island in Feb when I was spreading the rest of last year's free wood chips. Pic is from early March, IIRC. There are 3 day-lilies now in that bed beyond those front daffies -- an un-named purple unusual form, Rue Madelaine and Alaska Midnight. Those landscape timbers are just lying on the ground...they were left over from last year's projects, and I decided they made a good border.




There's a pink flowering almond on the other side of the driveway...




I have 2 Kanzaa (kwanza?) cherries...they're very reliable bloomers for me.





A summer wonder crabapple in the side yard has pretty blooms






But more important to me, the golden delicious tree I snagged for $3 in 2010 bloomed this year!





And we mustn't forget the legacy lilac...it came with the house, and I didn't know it was there until it bloomed the following spring, telling me I really was home. We had a lilac bush/tree in the backyard of my childhood home, and this "little patch of paradise" as I call it, is the first place I've ever really felt at home since we moved out of that first house when I was 14.

Mary, everything looks lovely!

Well, just lump me in with you. I don't have a formal anything. I'm a hit and miss gardener. If I like it, it goes where ever there's a place it will fit. Sometimes it stays there, sometimes it's moved. I have terrible soil. I tried the adding amendments thing for years and years. It works ok for beds that I'm going to leave the plants in but it was terrible for trying to dig up daylilies and divide them. I broke more than I could use elsewhere. Thus, I now have a field of pots, everywhere. I still have many "garden" beds that I try to tend. In fact, next week, I'm working in the front yard cleaning and fertilizing them enough that the neighbors won't think I've left the beds for the weeds.

We also have an acre on our west side and another on our east side of the house that we leave for all God's creatures to enjoy. We don't mow, don't clean up fallen limbs, don't do anything other than try to keep the poision oak under control. If we didn't do this the stuff would cover the house!!! These two lots(an acre apiece) have loads of trees on them. We love having them there to block out all the pretty manicured yards around. I also have 3 huge piles of limbs and other stuff that I don't put into the compost pile. These piles grow every year but they really don't get any bigger because nature does it's thing in about a years time and they sink back down to the earth. This is were the birds and all the animals have many babies.

So, please don't think you don't have a garden, you just use a different word. What you have is wonderful, it's home and there is nothing that will ever beat home,

Your photo's are beautiful, thanks for sharing and many blessings to you, Mona

Me, too, Mary. And my backyard, while much smaller than yours, is handled pretty much the same way--only I have a kid from the office who does it for me, dog poop and all.

Keep the photos coming. I like seeing plants like the fruit trees and lilacs that I miss from an Indiana childhood, but cannot grow this far south.

Nice photos, I also do little landscapeing, seems like what I do plant is always in the wrong place and has to be removed the following year.

Debra, estimating from the sections of chain link fence, my back yard is maybe 50x80. I've got an 11x40 section fenced off from the dogs now, and blocked another portion from them so they can't hide from me when they're out there (they would go behind the shed - now they can't). Still too much weed-whacking for my back to do in one session, and I can't find a strong young teenager to do it for me, unfortunately).

Before I published my book, my signature used to have a link to my non-ATP blog about my yard transformation. For those of you who haven't seen it, you can go here: http://fiwit.blogs.com/fiwit/g...

Most recent is on top, so you might want to read them in reverse order.

I'll try to get over to my neighbor's today and take some pics of my yard -- if I stand on his porch or porch steps, I can almost get the entire yard in one pic. Here's May 2011 - I had just spread at least 700 cu ft of wood chips I got free from the tree guy when a neighbor had some pines removed. That's when I defined the beds (took me 2 months to spread those wood chips, as I recall. The next batch I got took me a year to spread). The crabgrass loves those woodchips, if last summer is any indication






This raised bed is from the kits I scored at HD last year -- $20 each, so I bought the last five they had. That was to be my monarch waystation, but it got over-run with weeds. In fact, my next outside project is to tackle it. I'm thinking I'll just dig it out and start over -- it looks REALLY bad, right now. I have daylilies and roses around it (they were there first, actually, and I put the bed in the midst of them.





Gotta run - having breakfast with friends, and it's almost 30 miles away and my interstate has a section closed today for major roadwork (gotta love ATL ) So it's back roads the whole way -- peaceful, peaceful drive past horse farms and such, but it takes a little longer and I'm still in PJs.

Have a good day, y'all!

Beautiful Mary!! Hope you breakfast is good and a safe drive, Mona

What a lovely landscape. (Love the porch, too. ) Thank you for posting.

Really nice Mary, beautiful blooms and I love all of the trees, thanks for sharing.

lovemyhouse said:What a lovely landscape. (Love the porch, too. ) Thank you for posting.

You should see the BACK porch - it's screened (except for a hole or two at the bottom that the wrens have poked out -- they think the porch makes a good nest area, silly birds!).

The new 3x5 bed is now home to the FREE 3-gal PennyMac hydrangea I won from a local nursery earlier this month. And instead of having 5 azaleas needing homes, I now have 21. I stopped at HD on the way home from breakfast to buy a couple bags of dirt for that 3x5 bed. Came home with 10 bags of dirt, one bag of soil conditioner, 16 1-gal azaleas in assorted colors (4/$10 -- how could I leave any behind?), and a 2-gal hybrid tea rose (blue girl, I think? Anyway, a blue rose, or so the picture claims).

The rose is now in a corner of the original 8x16 raised bed. I'm going to put a couple azaleas in there as well, so there's something to see when the daylilies aren't dazzling folks. The other azaleas will be tucked around here and there, maybe in containers first while I ponder...

The hydrangea that I had to dig up when creating the new raised bed on the ugly side of the driveway is now living in my backyard. We'll see how she does, and I can always move her again.

I was outside for 30-40 minutes unloading the car, and planting those 3 plants, and am as sweaty as if I'd been doing real work. I really do NOT enjoy humidity, although my naturally curly hair loves it.

Mary, I say that you do have a garden. You have such a variety of flowers, shrubs, and trees already, and you are adding something all the time. Next time you come over this way, I'll send you home with flowers other than daylilies. The one thing that you have that makes a piece of property a garden is love. You said, "Gardens are planned, well-kept, cared for, weeded, fertilized, agonized over, appreciated and enjoyed, among other things." This statement sounds like WORK! Maybe some people map out and plan a garden, but that takes away the spontaneity (sp?). Most people start with one area at a time and expand, and that is what you are doing and we have done. You are making your garden to suit you and to fit your personality. A garden should reflect the gardener's personality. I'm not sure that I want to know what ours says about my personality. Very little was planned here. We started with one area, added a little here and little there, and 32 years later we have what we now have--lots of color and plant variety (and WORK!).

I reaaaalllllly want a Blue Billow Hydrangea and some Encore Azaleas, but they just need too much water for this area. Put a Wedding Gown Hydrangea in last year thinking I could keep it going and it didn't survive the nasty summer. Have a variegated one in a container that is doing okay so far, except it lost most of the variegation. Further east and southeast from Dallas, there are some cities with Azalea Trails in the spring where you can walk through neighborhoods with yards filled with them. If you can grow an Azalea, of COURSE you can't turn away from a 4/10 sale! I thought that was an inflexible part of the gardener's rule--never bypass a good plant sale for you may not see it's like again.

Doris, I agree and also think that patience is rewarded when the yard tells us what it wants and we listen to it. Not to sound all mystic or anything, but time and again it has proven true for me, anyway.

I think your garden is lovely and it is all yours, that's what counts. My garden probably wouldn't suit anyone else, but I love it. To each his own, and yes gardens are way too much work.

Dot

Work, well, just think how much we save by not having to go to the Workout Place to get exercise. We get our exercise by walking out our back door and digging in the dirt.

I cleaned in my front yard today. I'm hear to say, WORK was not the word. I feel llike I ran a triathelon(sp) and I'm just getting started. I pulled, dug, cut, crawled, down squats, deep knee bends, stretches and pulls, hoed, raked, trimmed and I'm quite sure I could think of some more words because I know that during the 7 hours that I was outside I covered more words than that!

Blessings to all and I hope everyone had fun today, Mona

Your house is really pretty.

Thanks.


This little patch of paradise is what stopped me from thinking I would move out of GA some day. Moved in here thinking I'd stay for a few years, and fall more in love with it the longer I live here (4 years last Nov, first as tenant then as owner). I now say they can have my house when they pry it from my cold dead hands.