Take A Walk With Me

Hello everyone, our garden is fast approaching a resting period. I think it finally hit its peak a couple of weeks ago. The rains came and strong winds from two near by tornados and the large tropical leaves are split and bruised. It, like the two of us, is starting to look a little tired and in need of a well deserved rest. I thought, if you would be so kind and join me, we would take one last stroll thru the garden. We’ll take a look at all the beauty that sprang forth from a blank canvas just six short months ago. It’s amazing what diligence, determination and help from kind strangers can accomplish. Why don’t we pretend to step away from the computer and walk out the back door into the garden?

I usually like to take my stroll starting on the left side of it. It’s an especially good idea to do that today because we have some new surprises in the works for you to the right and I want to save them for later. The little tropical section of the garden grew in really well, despite the aggravation the leaf rollers have caused with some of the cannas. Next year I will be prepared for the little buggers.

When we put in this most recent bed to the right, it created such a wonderful little path leading to the arbor.

This is a good view of the bed, it seems be doing pretty well, I’m anxious to see it after it’s grown in a little more. We had to reposition the bird bath. It’s the first time it’s been moved in 13 years.

As we turn around and look back, we can see the path we just traveled. When I’m hot and tired from cutting grass or digging in a new bed, this is my favorite spot to kick off my flip flops and walk barefoot. The grass feels so cool to your feet. If we happen to be especially tired, we tend to just plop right down on the ground and admire our hard work from this spot. There seems to be a good energy in that area, it just makes me feel comfortable.

This arbor was a gift from one of the pharmacist Jamie works with. It has 'Confederate Jasmine' planted on each side of it and it smells heavenly in the evening when it’s in full bloom. Let’s walk on thru it.

This area was almost all dirt just a few weeks ago and it was just aggravating me to death. When we put in the new bed behind us we were able to transplant some grass and it’s filling in very nicely.

To the left, one of our lions keeps a watchful eye on everything for us under the shade of a banana canna.

I’m particularly pleased with how quickly the Vitex is growing. It’s going to make a nice tree in no time. I’ve been tempted on more than one occasion to remove the Japanese maple on the opposite end of the bed and replace it with another Vitex or Texas Lilac as it is sometimes called.

This bed has given us just about all it can for this season. The Stellas and the Black Eyed Susans put on a wonderful show almost the entire summer.

Glancing back over my shoulder as we walk away, it looks to me like there is just too much grass here. That can only mean one thing… We need to put a new bed somewhere. Just over to the right you can see just little bit of the surprise we have for you in a later entry.

Here is a beautiful stand of ‘Tropical Sunrise’ Cannas that will need to be divided soon. We’re still being watch by someone in the corner way back in the back.

Now we’ll walk thru one of the three new arbors we made. One day it will be covered in beautiful tangerine vine. I expect good growth out of it next spring. Jamie and I have learned to build good, sturdy and attractive steel arbors for about 30 dollars and nice trellises for about 14 dollars. I’m going to show you how to do it in a later post.

I think we will finish up at the Buddha. We’ve made a pretty nice lap around the garden. We have over 340 species / cultivars of plants in our garden, most all of them put in since March of this year. It’s impossible to show you everything on one trip. I hope you enjoyed your walk with me. We’ll visit again soon.