Memorial Day 2012

Memorial Day weekend 2012....this "dummie" gardener was finally getting some legs.....I had no idea what lied ahead  in dealing with the sultry heat of Summer.....

My mother gave me some clemantis, aztec grass, and lantana.

Impatient rose and Alabama Beauty Camellias

A wildlflower disaster

A line of knockout roses speckled with Paradise Roses

My creekside retreat...stepping stones and a hammock to lounge under the magnolias and oaks

My mother bought me some Perwinkles ...Perwinkles and I have had a lukewarm relationship.

Wildflower line on the side of the drive

I planted hundreds of super tall sunflower seeds...this black-eyed susan looking flower is one of them....I am learning....you need to plant the right plant in the right place....slowly, very slowly

More sunflowers...these flowers grow fast!

Crepe myrtles my mother gave me....Again, bad location...they are struggling here.

I thinned out my sunflower line and planted the runts here ...it almost straight clay, very hot, and slopping but surprisingly they seemed to grow okay.

This wildflower bed wound up being the show stopper...I planted Pennington Cottage Mix here...There were so many flowers, I would up transplanting them accross the property...and they were planted on top of what used to be a clay pile to fix the drive.   I threw the seeds down and I threw a bag over them....and wait until you see the results.

Zinnia and Sulphur Cosmos....the Sulphur cosmos  would up being close to 10 ft tall!....My sunflowers didn't make it that tall.

Sunflowers getting taller

My husband built that bench in the under tree in three hours!  Wow, what a man.

My mother planted perwinkles and Mexican heather next to the azaleas....Mexican Heather is a wonderful plant down here....

My mom...(I was a foster child and my mom took me in as a teenager) wonderful woman she is...bought me Dahlias for the front steps...My mother-in-law....also, a wonderful lady loves the Dahlias....

I had inadvertently stumbled on to a garden design concept called Focal Points....My mother had an old birdbath.  Upon inspection I notice it really was meant to be a fountain.  I was so excited.  I went down to lowes and bought a spitter and now I have a fountain by the pool.  I back dropped the fountain with a bougainvillea.

I read articles about outdoor rooms..so when I moved in I placed my dinette in the informal dining room and put that dinetter set out on the back porch.

I planted some wildflowers around the base...this became very unruly...