My Summer 2015 Yard and Garden Tour
Come on over for My Summer 2015 Yard and Garden Tour
I’m inviting you to take my yard & garden tour today. I use the term garden loosely as our vegetable garden consist of an above ground garden with tomatoes and squash only. I’m more of a flower gardener. Because I love trees, I’m sharing some of my favorite trees which surround our property.
We live in rural Georgia, out in the country. We are surrounded by trees, by our design on about 2 1/2 acres. It’s 10 miles to the nearest grocery store. Along that journey, depending on which direction we go, we pass farms growing trees, wheat, cattle, corn, cotton and much more. There are peach and pecan orchards along the way. It’s true rural, country living where the sun shines bright and the crickets sing loud at night!
Daylilies in the spring are simply a magnificent show of color. A friend gave me quite a few Daylily plants so I think of him fondly each time they bloom.
Daylilies make me think of Luke 12:27; “ Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
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I’m easily distracted so I stopped and watched this video and had some praise time!
I simply HAD to share this video from my YouTube Channel of the song “Conside The Lillies” performed on one of the Gaither DVD’s.
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I love trees! I snapped this photo in our front yard, early in the morning as the sun was beginning to peek over the roof from behind. We planted that poor little Maple tree quite a few years ago. It suffered a setback when someone visiting our home actually drove over it. My husband thought it had died but I didn’t give up on it! Maple’s are gorgeous in the Fall.
Just beyond that Maple tree is our largest flower bed which is currently overrun with weeds. It is home to, Azalea, Hydrangea, Japanese magnolia, Daylilies, a struggling pink Dogwood, Lantana, Juniper ground cover, Liriope and more. Those two large Oak trees provide a feeding frenzy for the squirrels! We had more acorns last year than ever before.
Getting grass to grow in our sandy yard is always a battle. We planted that huge flower bed to combat the sand! We compost with leaves, and pine straw as well as compost from our compost bin constantly. It’s a lot of work to grow anything in sandy soil!
Our little Flower basket girl was relocated to sit amongst the Lantana this spring. She had been overtaken by a large azalea and needed to be rescued. It looks like the Lantana are out to get her too but she loves all the butterflies attracted to the lantana.
This giant Cedar tree is one of my favorite trees on our property! I always think how pretty it would be lit up with Christmas lights but we’d need a boom truck with a cherry picker to do it! This majestic cedar greets us in the driveway.
The front porch is flanked by a small bed currently in need of weeding. This bed is home to Lorepetulum, Dwarf Nandina’s, Daylillies and Liriope. My Patriotic Repurposed Can Birdfeeder found a home on a shepherd’s hook in this flower bed. You can see our DIY Solar Chandelier on the front porch, still bringing romance to the evenings!
The Lorepetulum are beautiful in full bloom!
It’s a shame Azalea’s don’t bloom longer than they do. They are so beautiful for about two weeks in early spring.
This Ice Plant is probably at least 10 years old. It was originally my Dad’s. I have some planted in the ground which has been overtaken by a creeping juniper but this one is in a large outdoor container.
Young Variegated Liriope. Liriope is a southern landscape must have! I received these plants from a friend which is one of the best ways to add to your landscape.
We added this Birdbath in early spring this year, purchased from a local garden store. They actually make their own birdbaths and other yard sculptures. (Shop local!) Our yard is host to lots of bird, squirrels and rabbits. The birds and squirrels have been enjoying their new water feature. They’re working me to keep it filled between rains!
Nandina shrub bordered by Liriope
Begonia are also a favorite found in southern gardens. Although most people plant them in the ground, they are also used for container gardening. I selected the Begonia for my Chevron Mod Podge repurposed can containers. I had the fabric left over from our Porch Makeover last summer.
Crape Myrtle. Did you know that you can spell the name of this flowering tree either Crape or Crepe? Good to know!
Did I mention how much I love trees? That’s a Holly Tree in the center of this photo. Last year, my husband cleaned out most of the underbrush from this area on the side of the house. This is home for most of our squirrels. They like to build their nests in these trees.
Coleus, one of my favorites for containers on the porch or deck. These are on the deck. I planted these from seed and overcrowded the container on purpose for the effect.
Yellow Summer Squash plants. These have only been planted for a couple weeks now. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that they do well and we have late summer, early fall fresh squash!
Tomatoes! We lost ALL of our tomatoes in the past to those horrible tomato hornworms. Read my post about Signs, Treatment & Prevention of The Tomato Hornworm
This is our cedar above ground garden. We purchased it at Sam’s few years ago. It was the floor model so the manager cut us a nice deal! The flip side to that was, no instruction manual for putting it together, because they took it apart! My husband was able to find the manual online so woo hoo!
That blue bucket is our weed bucket. We toss all the weeds into it and then they go to the burn pile. We use the ashes from the burn pile in the flower beds.
We currently have tomato plants, squash and marigolds in the above ground garden. The marigolds are supposed to help ward away garden pests which would otherwise harm the tomato plants. We planted our tomatoes from seed this year! Why not walk on the wild side occasionally?
Just behind the above ground garden to the immediate left and right are Peach trees.
Marigolds are another favorite of mine. These are on the deck. I planted these from seed as well as the Zinnia in the photo below.
Zinnia on the deck planted from seed.
I often share yard and garden photos on my Instagram. Here is a video I made while having coffee on the front porch recently. There was such a nice breeze outside that day!
Thanks for touring my yard and gardens! I’ll be out there shortly pulling weeds! The front flower beds are affectionately referred to around here as the ‘garden of weeden’!
What’s growing in your yard this summer?
You are living in a wonderful place! The garden space that you have is so big and lovely. I live in a city and our garden is quite small. In spite of that there are so many flowers and plants there. I am bringing new ones all the time! 🙂 My husband works as a gardener (landscapersgardeners.co.uk) so he has the pleasure to take care of all our plants. I would love to live in the countryside surrounded by nature but it is so hard to do this now. Thanks for sharing the photos of your beautiful garden with us! Greetings!
I enjoyed you garden tour and the photos of the plants. It’s nice to see garden with a diversity of plants. It’s interesting that where I live Lantanta is a noxious weed.
Gorgeous plants and trees on a beautiful property! If it wasn’t so darn hot here in Florida, I might have enjoyed gardening more when we had our house. Thank you for sharing with us at the #AnythingGoes Link Party.
I understand your love of trees and the country, I also live in the country but I do not have big trees at the moment. We have planted many but they are only 18months old. I too love flowers and enjoyed your tour around your garden. Thanks for sharing with us on #wednesdayswisdom
Congrats on your squash and tomatoes. You have gorgeous gardens! My “garden” is a tiny strip of periwinkles along the front of my trailer, a tiny strip along 1 side, and a hibiscus at the corner of the drive. And a circle of Mexican heather, I think it is, in fron of the periwinkles. I’ve never been a gardener before, but I love mine now!
I love the lily, azaleas and begonias the colours are so beautiful. Thanks for sharing such beautiful photographs with us at #WednesdaysWisdom.
I enjoyed your garden tour and I love your garden statue and flowers! So pretty.
Thank you so much for those kind words Julie. Our flower girl statue was my Mom’s. It used to sit on her back porch. She enjoyed it amongst the azaleas in our yard when she came to live here. Now it is a sweet memory of Momma for me.
I just love a good southern garden tour! I like your “garden of weeden” too! I laughed out loud on that one. We have sandy soil, too, and I feel your pain about the grass. Your garden is simply beautiful and I always enjoy beautiful flowers.
Those blessed weeds grow better than anything else in our yard with no effort! My mother was from Rockingham N.C. which was referred to as the ‘sandhills’ of the Carolina’s. Folks used to actually rake the sand to leave the tine marks in the yard. I wasn’t able to convince Stacy that we should do that here. LoL!
I love going on garden tours. Especially southern gardens where I see things I can’t grow here in the cold north. The marigolds are great! I like them because they do last into the fall and give nice orange colors to add to fall decor.
You have fabulous property and I truly enjoyed walking through it with you! Thank you! 🙂
Robin, that you so much for your kind words. I love garden tours too! It’s like when we were teens going through each others pocketbooks! I plant marigolds every year for the bright oranges and yellows but the orange one’s are my favorite too!