Other favorite things . . .

Flowers. I just love them. I don't know what it is about morning glories, but they elicit such joy. Like a kid at Christmas morning, I eagerly look forward to seeing how many blooms appear each day. I plant them every year and have since my first garden. This year the blossoms are abundant.

Since I haven't yet mastered blogging and adding pictures, let's see if I can place some of the other yard pictures throughout this entry. Of course, I will attempt to avoid the abundant weeds growing out there. (They just got away from us this summer.)

I tried out a new product (new to me) this year: A compost that has shellfish in it. It's made all our plants go wild! I'm totally in love with it and I recommend it highly to everyone who will listen.

My Blackeye Susans are amazing and have been blooming as beautiful as this since early July. They've never looked this good before. They've outgrown the corner of the raised bed and will have to be dug up and divided at the end of the season. So my gardner's mind is plotting other spots that I can move the new plants to.

It's one of the things I love about perennials, the economy of their division. When my own space gets too full of one variety, there's always other gardeners to share with.


Here's a photo of the "wealth corner" of the yard. For those who are familiar with Feng-shui, you'll know what that means.

When I first moved into this house 14 years ago this corner was a barren pool deck of concrete. One of the first projects I insisted upon was putting in a double tiered raised bed so we could have some greenery there. Over the years it's changed quite a bit, and coming up later this fall we'll be extending it 6-8 feet on both ends. Last year Nicole talked me into removing a bunch of perennials and growing tomatoes and peppers. I told her that if I saw a horned worm on the tomatoes I'm not going near them! She agreed to handle any pest problem that arose. Well, we've had no problem with those kinds of pests (thankfully -- I hate bugs), and quickly figured out that we need more space. Next year we're going to try adding cucumbers.

You may notice some lawn chairs up against the greenery in the left side of the garden. That's one of our creative solutions to tomato plants that have grown so large that they needed help being propped up. Those round cones were totally insufficient to hold the plants up and we didn't want the stems to break as they fell over with the weight of the tomatoes.

This is our favorite sitting place. It's a picture from earlier this summer before the Morning Glories started blooming. We all love our picnic table. It was an extravagant purchase made back when I had refinanced the house to have the backyard landscaped. We ended up moving it to the pool deck since we tore down an ugly shelter which offered the only shade down at the shallow end of the pool. The set is made of Jarah Wood, which comes from Australia. It's what's used to make pier pilings there and is impervious to wood rot. The benches are so comfortable that sitting here is even more comfortable than sitting at my dining table in the house. Countless hours of fun have been had sitting here, for me and the kids and lots of friends.

Here's a long shot of the raised bed taken from the steps of the pool. Hiding in the garden is my Buddah. Since I do Asian Bodywork (shiatsu) as one of my jobs, I love having Asian garden sculptures to gaze upon out my treatment room window. There's a few other lovely things around the yard, and part of me wishes I could see the entire vista of the yard and gardens from the window. However, unfortunately, only this section of the yard can be viewed from a window in the back of the house. Actually, there's only the sliding door in the treatment room that you can see into the back. One of the sad things about this house is that there isn't any windows facing the back yard. I've really missed being able to view the birds at the feeders throughout the year. That's something we only get to enjoy in the good weather when we're out in the yard.

This is a view of the other side of the yard, opposite the last picture. This shows one of my favorite sculptures, a gorgeous Japanese pagoda made from granite.

This corner of the yard is quite shady most of the day. I've got a variety of hosta planted there.

My neighbors have Trumpet vine which have run amuck and grow over and between my fence. We try to keep pulling them out because they take over so much that over the years they've killed off a variety of Astilbe that I had growing along the fence.

Speaking of neighbors, the ones behind me planted enormous Sunflowers this year. I've always wanted to plant Sunflowers but never wanted to sacrifice the space to grow them since my pure sunny spots are limited. This year I am graced with my neighbors Sunflowers which turn to face the sun and smile on our back yard. Thank you lovely neighbors!

They're so cheerful, they've GOT to make you smile! The birds love them and lately they've been attracting cardinals to our yard, and for that, I'm most appreciative.

A close up of one of the many planters around the yard.

Ok....that's all for now. Since I've been sitting here posting this, the weeds are growing and the plants are calling out for water.