Garden in August

John, our neighbor next door, had trees taken down & shared his chippings with us. I was able to put them on all the pathways in the garden & even recover the parking area.

The grass area looks good because I raked out lots of thatch & Richard cut it. I think the kids even noticed!

One of my two hydrangea blossoms; all the plants survived the long cold winter but did not have enough strength to flower.

The hosta garden is looking good now, the astilbe bloomed well too. This 'wet' garden gets lots of water from the roof runoff, you can see the hose snaking through the plants.

Garden in July

Sun garden.  Michael's garden to the left.

Herb garden.

Shade garden.

Hosta garden from the back porch.

Patio garden.

Front entry.

Running hare topiary, which you can't see too well.

Michael's garden with a new crepe myrtle.

First cala lily.

Anthony's astors.

Hostas in the patio garden.

Blue bottle bush.

The only hydrangea flower so far this year.

Annual mowing

I've just finished the annual ritual of using the DR brush mower to beat down the underbrush around the house.

Disney World trip

Our room at the Disney All Star Movie Resort - with mouse towel art in the foreground.

Our first dinner was at the Grand Floridian Resort.  Here is the lobby.

The next day we were at Animal Kingdom.

Then on to EPCOT.

In England.

Mulan, in China.

Italy.  My flat feet gave out and this rented scooter helped a lot.

Sleeping beauty.

Then we lost our camera.  But, amazingly, Disney lost and found returned it it us.  But, then, we forgot to take it with us on the last few days of Disney.

Richard made a trip to Tampa to see his brother and his family.

Garden in May and Flower Show

We just had a couple of inches of rain, and the garden is greening up and flowers are out.

Today is the Beverley Garden Club flower show.  Here is Jane's display.

Mulch, birds, and Harry Potter

This year's mulch pile was just delivered.  This is the 'before' picture.  It was steaming when delivered.

Just about every evening, Cecilia reads a chapter of Harry Potter to the girls.  She is now in book 4 - a thick one.  Plus, the girls are watching the movie of book 3.

The bird feeder has been doing a great business.  It has to be refilled almost every day.  Most of the customers are goldfinches.  It is not unusual to see a dozen goldfinches at the feeders - unfortunately they were camera shy today.

Snake Eggs?

These are hard to see, but here we have a pile of shed snake skins & what I think are snake eggs. The skins were on the top of the mulch pile & the eggs I found in the middle of the pile while I was digging mulch. They all have holes in them, were rubbery feeling before drying out & stuck together at first. This is our big backyard. The girls took a few of each to school for a show & tell.

Tree Trimming

We had guys here today to trim a lot of dead branches off of trees, so they don't fall on our heads.  They also took two large dead trees down.  They may not finish today.

The Garden Blooms

Hydrangeas:

 Variegated lace cap.

The Garden in Late May

This is the cutting garden, but I don't really cut too many. You can see Michael's Garden on the lower left. The yellow Siberian iris are just starting & Ingrid's Iris Island is in bloom at the end of the left row.

I think I was too far to really get the flowers. The peonies are all in flower now & smell great. The herb has no blooming items but is doing well.

This is a better shot of the peonies. The orange flowers are poppies.

This is the patio area & the hydrangeas have so many buds, they will look wonderful in July. Everyone has buds this year. The hostas haven't bloomed yet either. The blue bottle bush is growing too.

The rest of the patio. Its hard to see but in the area where the fountain is, the astillbe are almost ready & I will take closer pictures when they flower. Richard's Rock garden gets 'worked' on by the girls often. They re-arrange the stones & add stuff, it looks cute. The Ying-Yang area before Richard's Rock Rectangle can almost be seen. The curve in the middle is easy, but the whole circle is harder. I usually spend a few hrs in the yard every morning when its cool & I so enjoy it. There is always something to do & its so rewarding.