Now that Jim woke me up . . . (just kidding) I'd like to bore you with pictures from my daughter's garden in Salt Lake City.
She and her hubby bought a brand-new house 5 years ago, with nothing but baked clay and construction debris for a garden. Of course they had zero in the budget for landscaping. I gleefully jumped in with both feet and a credit card and financed the planning and planting and micro-irrigating of what is now a fairly low-maintenance and water-efficient perennial and groundcover garden. For the first few years I went there for a week each spring and fall to plan and plant.
Our first fall, and each one after that I'd arrive in late October so we could take advantage of the nurseries closing up for the winter - huge discounts on all the expensive trees and shrubs for the yard. It was fun to see how much we could get for little cash outlay. Best bargain we got was actually for my son's yard, 3 Gala apple trees, marked down from $75 to $13.95 each.
Two views of the back yard -
Before - spring 2007 About 30 pickup loads of compost from the landfill, and we actually had soil we didn't have to use a pickax to dig in.
After - taken last week. I think it's turned out really great. This is the first year I've made it for a visit in May when all the iris and oriental poppies are in bloom. Amazing the huge clumps of flowers we've grown from a few scrawny little fans and roots. My son-in-law was very doubtful, but finally admitted this year that I had not exaggerated. He said "It really does get more beautiful, and easier to maintain every year!"
Amazing iris, we're hoping they were early enough blooming this year that the so-called "re-bloomers" will actually re-bloom!
Warrior King and Orange Harvest
Edith Wolford and Tennyson Ridge
and Victoria Falls (we think, lost the tag)
Clematis 'Niobe' - did you guess my daughter's favorite color yet? Close-up is the best image of the color.
Easy Does it and Honey Dijon roses. When Easy Does it opened all those buds you could hardly see any leaves!
We've had a clump of plain old chive plants that have mutated and made these huge globe flowers. I stuck my paw in the pic so you'd have a size ref.
We have a good succession of bloom going on now, there are lots of daylilies, daisies and echinacea, Russian sage and sneezeweed, then chrysanthemums to round out the fall bloom.
Phew. There's a lot of my sweat and blood in that garden but now, I'm so lucky to have a garden 'up north' where I can plant all those things that don't grow in Florida.
Fantastic gardens!
