Tend My Garden

[TimothyBFan]

Good eye Mike---It's a dead tree trunk that my husband and a friend brought home for me one night. I had wanted "something" to go in the front but didn't know what and they were coming down a country road one evening and Larry made his friend stop to pick it up. It's all wavy and white--really neat and again, I have little critters stationed around it.

I don't know how well you can see the small tree behind it, but that is the newest addition to the front. It's a Harry Lauder's Walking Stick. My husband found it at a nursery this spring, came home and picked me up to go see it and I fell in love with it. If you've never seen or heard of them, do a google search and check it out. It is really cool, the branches are all twisted and gnarled, the leaves look like they are always wilting and have no real shape to them and it gets little "cat tail" things on it later in the year.

The fence has a story also. A few years ago when we put it up, the building inspector (which a lot of people in town have issues with-we had never as of then) came by and told us there was a town ordinance against fences in the front yard because of issues with the ladder trucks if there was a fire etc... Mind you, my 3 year old nephew had kicked a section of it down by himself so I was pretty sure the big bad firemen wouldn't have any trouble either, besides, like I told the inspector, my fireman nephew knew that I would kick his *ss if he didn't knock it down to get to my son's bedroom. Anyways, he said if he got complaints because we had one then we would have to tear it down. In the next block, there are a bunch of rental properties that are starting to get really bad and a couple that are about to fall down that no one seems to get after the owners about that the rest of us have complained several times about. Me being a wee bit outspoken, told Mr Inspector, if they came to try to get me to take down my pretty little fence, would sit my *ss on it till they made the landlords clean up the mess in the next block. He got in his truck and left. That's been at least 4 years ago, so I guess no one complained. And to bring a little more attention to it, we added the archway this past spring.

Living in a small town and dealing with small town politics does get on ones nerves!!!

[TimothyBFan]

Willie, I love your yard! Just one thing missing.. the leaping hottie on the back of the house... you need to add a wig or some hair silhouette and a bass guitar in the other hand..

He's actually on the garage. My friend owned a dance studio that I managed about 10 years ago and that is where he came from. His name is Larry and he used to be purple and wore a tshirt from the studio and mardi gras beads. Hubby Larry had cut him out and painted him etc... so my friend always called the silhouette Larry.

This is the only water we have (I would like to add another one below the deck some day). This is as fancy as us small town hicks get.


And Cathy, that or as you can see here in the background on the patio is where the vinyl parties take place. If it's chilly, we have them on the patio because of the outdoor fireplace (another Walmart 1/2 off clearance item we purchased a couple years ago for about $150.00).We have put it to good use several times! The console and speakers are all wired in the garage and the speakers get moved out to whichever we are at when the time comes.

This "thing" here I bought at an antique show several years ago because I just had to have it. Don't know why but I did and it now hangs on the side of the garage next to the door above ther patio.

[MikeA]

Here's that Drooping Mulberry I mentioned. If you go to the album link at http://mvabercrombie.net/abercrombie...0603_yard.html you can see the root that is flexing its muscles!

I also tried to take a couple of macro shots of the clematis blooms but I don't have a very steady hand.

[MikeA]

Mike, your butt rock story cracked me up (get it? butt crack?)
Anyway, yours seems like a lot of work. Here's our water feature.

Believe me Cathy, I thought I'd heard ALL the buns, I mean puns about that Butt Rock but yours was flesh....I mean fresh...I mean NEW! <SIGH>

I do not critique you at ALL for going with one of the waterfeatures. We very seriously looked at doing an entire garden from the irregular shaped forms combined with a water feature similar to what you have. It took some soul searching before we decided to dig. And if I knew (and felt) what I went through in putting it in after the fact, I'd never have given "natural" a single thought!

I dug every teaspoon of dirt with a Mattoc Pick, shovel and wheel barrow! The small pond wasn't too bad. It's no more than a foot or 18" deep. The big one though, in addition to being roughly 20'x30' is "stepped" down to almost 4' on the bottom! It took me most of a month of digging after getting off work and on weekends. If I did anything like that again, I'd get a power digger...a walk behind backhoe or something.

Willie, we searched high and low for a good piece of driftwood. I finally found one washed up on the banks of a remote lake and it was white and odd shaped. I brought it home but over a period of a couple of years it started decaying and drawing ants and other undesirable creatures to it. Had to get rid of it.

[Brooke]

I dug every teaspoon of dirt with a Mattoc Pick, shovel and wheel barrow! The small pond wasn't too bad. It's no more than a foot or 18" deep. The big one though, in addition to being roughly 20'x30' is "stepped" down to almost 4' on the bottom! It took me most of a month of digging after getting off work and on weekends. If I did anything like that again, I'd get a power digger...a walk behind backhoe or something.

This is the way we do things at our house, too, Mike. And we think we are having fun! And it is, to a point!

Everyone's gardens are beautiful. Thanks for sharing!

Here's part of mine from last year.



Underneath the deck is a sitting area with a porch swing and bench.



We completely redid our deck last summer. No water features yet. I'm a bit scared of those!

[MikeA]

Don't be afraid of them Brooke. If you do decide to "do one" talk to me first. I can probably give you some tips that will end up saving a lot of money in construction.

If you are "afraid" of them because of the maintenance, well, there is something to that. At least the first couple of years as the pond is maturing. It'll drive you nuts with the algae blooms. They are a lot easier to keep clean if you do not have fish, but not having fish sort of defeats the purpose <LOL> However, I can say that the little pond that has no fish in it is so easily maintained that I am tempted to try and get rid of the fish in the large pond.

When it starts looking murky, Verna just dumps a gallon of Chlorox in it and bingo! Sparkling clear again! <LOL> The bleach (chlorine) doesn't seem to hurt the flora in the pond although, anything fauna in it might not benefit!

Your yard looks "made for" a water garden! With that slope, you could have a beautiful cascading stream 30' or 40' long emptying into a water garden as large as you might want! The stream itself would serve as the filter. And with the proximity to your little private area under your deck, the sound would be wonderful. And birds LOVE streams! We always have Cardinals, Blue Jays, Oreoles, Finchs, Doves and occasionally, Blue Birds bathing in our stream.

[Prettymaid]

You guys, this is better than an Outdoor Living magazine! I love looking at all of your gardens (so glad I thought of this!) I'm already stealing ideas!

Brooke your pics are beautiful. Our arbors are very similar!

[Koala]

Your gardens are all beautiful.

[Prettymaid]

Here are a couple more pictures of the secret garden in better light.
From the front...




And from the back...

[Prettymaid]

I've had this peace sign for years and it sums up the feel of the garden.




An angel watches over the secret garden.



My new guinea impatien loves it's spot in this 'chair'.