Around the House: What's in the Garden

Our yard is a work in progress. A couple of years ago it looked like this.

Over time we've turned the yard into a full garden adding flowers, plants, and shrubs to fill things out.   It has required a lot of time, work, and patience, but has been well worth the effort. We see it as our little way of brightening up our home and city. So without further ado, here's what's going on...

This year we added a few peony plants and orange lilies. The pop of orange really makes me happy and the scent of the peonies is wonderful. It's too bad our peonies were not in bloom very long :-( But I have a special project I'll share with you later that involves our spent blooms.

We have a huge sycamore tree in the front yard so most of our garden is covered in shade. This makes hostas a nice option. They are an attractive low maintenance ground cover. They spread vigorously and can easily be divided, so it's often easy to score a few for free. You can get them free from a neighbor, through plant exchanges, via Craigslist free section, and FREECYCLE. Several people were kind enough to give us free hostas. We have many in the yard that will fill out in years to come, and once they do we'll be able to return the favor and offer our extras to someone else.

We also added another shade plant, astilbe. We have them in two colors dark and light pink. Most of them are small now, but in a few years they'll spread out and cover more ground. They work well if you need to plant around a tree base.

Interspersed throughout the yard we have a few purple hydrangeas. They do well in part shade and are one of my favorite cut flowers. It's nice to pick plantings that you'll enjoy bringing inside, so you won't be tempted to purchase bouquets during the spring and summer.

There are several blue mistflowers planted. I like them because they add interest through height and have a pretty lavender flower that blooms later in the summer.


Tucked in a shady corner are some bleeding hearts. They are pretty small now. I'm looking forward to watching their growth.

You may have noticed we still have a few leaves on the ground. We opted to use them as natural mulch, instead of purchasing mulch. It saves us money, simplifies things, and uses what we've got. So far I'm happy with the decision.

There are a few more flowers, but to be honest I'm pooped and will have to blog about them some other time. So tell me what's going on in your garden?

"Life's a garden--dig it."~unknown