Meandering Around My Home

When I typed "around my home" in the above title, I meant it literally.  I walked around my home with my camera, with the goal being to share my tour with you!

Inspired by my friend Lori and her June garden tour post, I took my camera on my wandering tour.  As a side note, visit Lori's blog to read her "Friday Farm Girls" posts.  They will surely bless you!

Now, I must say that I'm not a gardener by nature.  I plant flowers and things, and if they survive from year to year, I keep them.  If they die, well then--I don't!!  ;)

I actually made two tours of my yard areas--one with my regular lens and one with my macro lens.  Today's tour will give you an overview of our little corner of the world.

The Front Yard

The front of our house, complete with Suburban in the driveway

We have a pie-shaped wedge of property, with the point at the back end of the back yard.  So our front walkway is really wide, and our front yard has lots of space that I don't know what to do with.

The guys recently dug out the below patch of grass, mounded up all our extra dirt and compost, set the rocks up there, and helped me transplant flowers from my original front yard garden in the photo above (just above the "anne" in my watermark).  Some of the tall heliopsis in the back is still wilted, but it's a hardy plant and I'll just cut it off.  It'll come back next year.

And this is the original front yard garden from which we transplanted the above flowers.  It looks a little bare, and I still have to rake out the pile of dirt the guys dumped into it.  It contains blue oat grass (one of my favorites but it is dying), beard-tongue, daisies, and threadleaf coreopsis (the yellow flowers in the front left).  There are a few daffodil leaves still standing as well.

Threadleaf coreopsis

Beyond the above garden, at the far edge of the fence, I dug out a little corner and planted some astilbe.  Thomas mowed over it once a few weeks ago, but it is coming back, and even has some peach-colored blooms on it.

Completing my front yard garden tour is my porch garden below.

This is the very first garden that graced my new home.  When we moved here 13 years ago, it was filled with nice, green sod.  It was the best grass on our entire 1/3 acre of lawn!  Year after year, I envisioned a garden here, until about six years ago the dream materialzied.  I had had several years of chronic pain, and after I underwent surgery to attempt to alleviate it, my dear friend and heart-sister Dee came over and almost single-handedly dug out the sod.  All the boys replanted it in other parts of the yard, and Dee and I went shopping with some extra money Fernando had given me.

First, we drew out a plan and planned the color scheme.  We read plant books and picked out flowers by color and size.  The plants I ended up choosing were different from the plan, but the colors were the same, and Dee taught me so much about how to plan a garden.  What a gift I received from my friend!  Below, my rocking chair from Cracker Barrel now sits on the porch.  (Ignore the dirt.)

The view as I sit in my chair.  :)

The Back Yard

I will show you my back yard in (mostly) pictures.  First, I step out onto the stoop from our kitchen door onto our patio, and look from right to left across the yard.

See those raised beds for vegetables?  That's where I spend most of my summer yard time.  :)

I'm standing south of my veggies in the photo above.  If I turn 180 degrees, there is a spot that will one day be very special.  It is my back yard flower garden spot, started and worked on throughout the years of chronic pain, and then neglected over the last three or so years.  We had enough money to buy some edging brick, but I never finished it.  I went back once to buy a bunch more brick, but they had changed the size!  So now I'm not sure what to do with the edging, or with all those bricks.

The (mostly) finished part does look pretty--Fernando bought me a garden bench one year.

The view from my bench is not too bad--lots of weeds, though there are a few flowers managing to survive.  I think I'll keep those.

I couldn't resist--one macro shot of a weed in my back yard garden

It used to be a sun-filled garden, but with the maple tree's growth, it has turned into a shady spot.

One day I'll have me a pretty back yard garden spot where I can sit and read my Bible or daydream.  One day, when life slows down.  :)



Back to life,
Christine

Visit my photography blog
Visit my photography website