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Around Our Garden Landscape

This weekend after all the garden related chores were done for the day, and just before sunset came, I took a few photographs of how our gardens look this April.  I still have mulching, pruning, weeding, and many other things to do but I thought it would be a good time to share some of our garden with you.  These pictures are mostly of the backyard but there is one of our sideyard garden where the arbor is. 

The first picture is a wide shot of the backyard.  The lawn in the middle is framed by the vegetable garden to the right and the birdbath garden to the left. One of these days I'll repair the birdbath and get it back out there!  This year has been extremely busy and I've put off some projects in favor of others.  The birdbath is one of the "do later" chores.  You can see in the vegetable garden the two wooden trellises I made last year for cucumbers and melons.  They worked great!


We'll shift slightly to the left and see more of the birdbath garden.  Irises are blooming right now but soon other perennials will be showing off.  The two shrubs on the far side toward the back of the garden are a ninebark and a witchhazel.  I need to move one of them but I'm afraid it may be too late this year.  Perhaps this fall I'll attempt it. 


 Another slight shift to the left shows a viburnum on the corner.


Inside the garden is a statue placed in a patch of catmint.  Catmint is one of my most favorite perennials simply because it is so easy to grow!  It's easy to propagate too and you can turn one into many very quickly.  It attracts pollinators and is said to repel certain undesirable insects (like termites, cockroaches, and mosquitoes)!


This pink phlox has made a nice home underneath a crape myrtle.  Unfortunately the crape myrtles in our yard are severely frost bitten. They will recover but if they bloom will most likely bloom much later than normal.  We can blame this on the early warm weather and the frost combo.


And last I'll leave you with this photo of our side garden arbor and the corner shade garden.  Hostas, heucheras, oak leaf hydrangea, ajuga, hellebores, Japanse ferns, and astilbe all are in the corner shade garden.  The Japanse maple is a little frost bit but mostly came through the frost OK.


I hope you enjoyed that quick tour!  There's more to come soon!