Mistress Sandi...How Does Your Garden Grow???

I just love watching my flowers bloom as we progress to summer. I thought I would share a few pictures of our yard and the flowers we are enjoying right now.

This first picture is of my very first Knock-out Rose bud. Claude built a flower bed by his altar on the hill in the back yard. This bed goes on either side of the steps down to this altar. We put some tiny, tiny Knock-out Rose bushes in these beds last fall hoping they would come back and grow big over time and fill in this spot on the hill with some summer color. Knock-out Roses are supposed to be really hardy and they will need to be to grow on this clay and rock hill of ours. It was a pure delight to finally be able to walk that far down the hill and then find a little bud on this bush. Of the 6 bushes we planted 5 have growth on them. The 6th bush has green at the base of the stalk but the limbs are dead. We're going to watch it to see if it will try and send out shoots from the base and the roots.

These next 2 pictures of of the iris bed. We have 2 places where plastic piping is buried under the lawn to the place where our hill REALLY slopes down. These pipes are for rain water that runs down the gutters and away from the house. Claude had a depression in the grown below this gutter. He framed the top edge around the plastic pipe with rocks and then built up the ledge and filled it in with dirt to make a place for our concrete bench. It is under the shade of some trees and is a beautiful place that is very quiet to sit and watch the creek and the birds. It overlooks the ledge with the sandbox and the next ledge below it with the altar and the flower beds. These irises come from Utah. Joann, Claude's older sister, gave them to me. So it is a treasure to have family flowers when we live so far from family. The picture on the left is of a single iris and looks up the hill to the concrete bench I mentioned earlier and out across the empty lot which we own next to the lot our home is on. The second picture is just a little iris that was nestled next to the rocks that frame where the pipe comes out.

Now we move to the front of the house. Claude built a 3-tiered flower bed along the front of the house. This picture is of red Columbine in the level in front of the front porch. Columbine is the state flower of Colorado. We lived in Denver, Colorado for 8 1/2 years. So we wanted some Columbine in our beds.

The middle bed is my Peony bed. The pink Peonies in the middle of this middle bed came from Utah and were in Bonnie's garden. Bonnie is Claude's mom. They may have come from Gramma Chris' garden before that or from the ranch site. I'll have to have Bonnie refresh my brain about that portion. They have a long pedigree with the Christensen family in Utah. Again, it is totally fun to have them with us in Kentucky. The red Peonies I purchased here to fill out the bed and give some variety to the color.

The 3rd and lowest of the 3 flower beds is under Claude's office and is full of Lilac Bushes. Claude remembers Lilac's from the ranch growing up and really wanted them in our yard. We purchased these in Kentucky. We actually only put 2 or 3 bushes in and they have really filled out and grown taller and are blossoming great this year. They are not completely blossomed out but I couldn't wait to take pictures. They smell sooooooo good. The first picture is a close-up of the flowers. The second picture is taken looking from the 3rd bed of Lilacs up the hill to the 2nd bed with the Peonies.

This is just a shot of the front of the house showing all three tiered flower beds. The ring of vines in the front of the lawn is our water meter. We just built a bed around it so it didn't just stick up in the yard. The little tree at the right corner of the house we started from a tiny little thing that was about 12 inches tall that we ordered from the Arbor Foundation. We have another on the other side of the house and several on the hill. It takes a little longer to get them big tree size that way but it is fun to watch them grow and we only spent $40 total for all the trees we got through them.

Now, you ask, "Why a picture of the deck?" I shall tell you why. We have 2 decks on the back of our house. One came with the house and is above the concrete patio you see in the left side of the picture. This decking in the picture is the lower deck and we had it put in a couple of years ago. I put the picture in because my hubby has worked very hard this week to stain both of the leves of decking. It is just so pretty and all the same color and I'm really proud of his hard work. Tomorrow he will put the white adirondac chairs and the hammock on two levels. The whisky barrels are from Buffalo Trace Distillery where we go for Dr. McGillicuddy root beer and pancake mix. Claude is growing tomatos in this this year and he has bell peppers some flower pots that will go on the steps to the yard. That is our flowers at this point. Hope you enjoyed them as much as are enjoying them.