Life in the New Canned Ham

This blog post is SO overdue.  I thought I'd get away with weekly summaries with my Sunday summaries, but that was...well...a month of Sundays ago.

I've finally took some photos with the camera, not thinking that my usual setting is in RAW, which is WAAAAAY too big for the internet.  So, after fumbling around and figuring out how to change the settings on the camera, I diligently went back out and shot again.

As in my gardens of old I need to add some touches of whimsy here and there, or it wouldn't be my garden.  The red jacks above is to remind us to take time to play.  Snort...like I needed that reminder!

I'll introduce you to the first garden I did last summer, which is the triangular section you see above, going up to the tree.

In this garden I planted some of my old favorites, like this dwarf goatsbeard.

The newest addition is from the tree going outward.  It's not large, but I've managed to create a bird haven with a bird bath, feeders, a wind chime and hanging basket.  My favorite are the trellises.  I kind of went nuts and bought six of them because I love vines and since it's a small area I can use the vertical space.  Mostly because I love vines.

Since it's a shady area I can have my ferns and hostas here that would never cut it in Arizona.  Each location has it's one unique beauty.

One of my favorite ferns from before was this Ghost Fern, so that got added to the new area.

And I had to have just one more of the Japanese painted ferns, you can never have too many of these.

This is my favorite brunnera, Jack Frost.  He'll get tiny blue flowers but I tend to grow my plants just for the foliage.

I added the variegated Solomon Seal in the back for some height.  I love these and hope it spreads quickly along the back border.

Of course, a shade garden isn't complete without an astilbe.

Now let's go to the back of the yard and see what's around the shed.

 The purple pig had to come with me, of course.  This was a gift from my son.  I planted morning glories by him, from seed no less.  I've never had any luck doing that, but maybe it was the heavy clay soil I had before.  This side area of the shed has bags of garden soil because the soil here is awful as well and hard to dig because of the copious root system from all my trees.

Here's a view of the side of the shed.  I have cucumbers planted on the left trellis and there's a tomato on the right side.

This is the back of the shed.  In the farm house container sits Bob.  He's been with me forever and even though his bottom is busted out now (a toddler accident with the grandkids) he still likes to be around in a planted.  Just another senior who needs a little more support.

In the taller metal stand I have a little fairy garden.  I'll need to take some closer photos for those to show up, but for now I just wanted to get this blog started again.

These are my "free hostas" that I'm using to line the edge of the driveway.  I am a quasi-member of the Beautification Committee here in the park and I assisted in thinning out some of the overgrown hostas and was able to take "a few" of them home.

This has nothing to do with the gardens, but on the other side of the trailer is our cat cage.  It's the same cage as in Arizona, so they are used to using it.  This allows them to exit through a small window in our living room to enjoy the night air.

Well, that's it for today.  I hope you enjoyed the garden tour.  I promise I'll update the blog more faithfully from now on with photos of things as they bloom and as things are added.  Because I'm sure things will be added.  I have some trellises with nothing on them yet and I spotted a park member who has a surplus of ferns should he be willing to part with some.

Long Live the Queen!