My Garden

It's finally time for the long awaited post with the update on my garden.  I went around the yard yesterday and took pictures with my phone because I finally figured out how to upload from my phone to my blog.  I'm very happy as this significantly simplifies the whole picture upload process and makes this post much easier to do.

Full view of the backyard garden

My gardens this year have some very lovely flowers, thanks to my Aunt Amy who is borrowing my beds until she has a garden to put her perennials in after they moved here to Hamilton last year and also thanks to my Dad who split of bunch of things for me last fall.  Allow me to take you on a quick tour:

Herb barrels

Here are my herb barrels.  In the left barrel are chives and in the right are basil and parsley.  I'm actually not super thrilled with my basil this year.  I think it's a different variety than I had last year, and I didn't care for the taste as much when I put it into a salad last week.

There are black-eyed susans on either side of the barrels and one tucked in behind that you can't really see.  My hope is that they will fill in all around the barrels.  I can't remember the name of the purple flower in front.

Here we have some coreopsis and coral bells from Aunt Amy, and some daisies and echinacea (cone flower) from Dad, plus a bush and some ivy that was already there.  The picture's a bit small, so they're not easy to see, but they're there.  I need to find something to fill in front yet.  It's a bit of a chore keeping the bushes from not completely taking over, and I need to be very on top of the ivy as well, but when they're kept in check, they have a nice look to them.

Closeup of coral bells

This is a pink bee balm (I think) from Aunt Amy.  It just bloomed this past weekend, and it's quite lovely.

Shade garden

This is my hosta garden with a bleeding heart thrown in.  This corner is almost completely full shade, hence the choices here.  You can't really see them very well right now, but there are a few lily of the valley plants thrown in the mix as well to fill in some of the gaps.  The hostas are now blooming, and I'm quite happy with how this garden has turned out.

 The gardens beside the house continue to be a bit of a work in progress.  We've cleaned up the ivy off the chimney and from the garden in front of it.  There used to be a spruce on the corner in front of the ugly furnace vent.  I've put in a lilac there instead, but it's still a bit too small to fully block the ugliness.  Hopefully we can just replace that at some point.

Here's a bit more of the side garden, the part right next to the gate.  Apparently it could use a bit of weeding...  There's some red bee balm on the top left.  Next to it with the tiny yellow flowers is a different variety of coreopsis from Dad.  Then a sedum which is probably in the wrong spot.  I think it would prefer a bit more sun or something because I can't get the darn things to bloom if my life depended on it.  You can't see it well, but there's also an anemone flower a bit in front of the coreopsis.  It bloomed quite nice earlier in spring.  I filled in some of the holes with some spare annuals, but they should also be in a bit more full sun area.  Oh well. 

Last but not least, here's a shot of the big tree garden in the front yard.  I put in all petunias this year, and it looks quite nice at the taking of this picture.  A week ago I wasn't too sure how it would turn out as it appeared that our friendly neighbourhood rabbits were enjoying the taste of them, but some deadheading and significant watering later, and they appear to be picking up.  I'm hoping the whole thing fills in, but we'll see.

So I hope you've enjoyed your tour of my gardens.  I didn't show you the very front garden because there's not much to see right now.  It fills in nicely with some daffodils and lilies in the spring, and I tried putting in some snapdragons, but they didn't take very well, so it's not much to look at at this point.  Overall, we've made some significant progress considering what this place looked like three years ago when we moved in.  If you ever want to come and see it in person, visitors are always welcome! :)