WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gorgeous!!

What a beautiful virtual tour! Thought I was there! Relax & enjoy the fruits of your labor! You deserve it!! :D
Sorry to hear you're having a drought.

~Rosemarie

Wow, it looks like a professional garden you'd pay to go see! Thanks for the view. Hope you get a break in the pattern of weather to your region soon.

Absolutely Gorgeous!!

Beautiful!! Hope you get some rain soon.

WOW!..and DOUBLE WOW! Words are not enough to describe your beautiful gardens. Your love for flowers and gardening exudes from every picture. For a few minutes in my busy life, I got lost in the peace and lovliness of every picture and felt I was meandering through a professional botanical garden. Thank you for sharing with us. I have never seen a better display.

Just delicious, to use a different adverb for a change. Love your lightpost, love it all!!

oh karen i have been looking for ages for your fun garden, SO excited to see it in its glory again! it looks gorgeous as ever. if you have any interest in adding bearded iris email, i can send you a box for postage, i can tell you love the garden and would love to share if you want some!

Karen you have THE most fabulous garden! I love so many things. I love the rocks, the conifers, the big sweeps of similar color that look so stunning.
I also love the lightpost and all the little touches like the ironwork shutters and the painting on the fence.
I need to go back and look again. There's so much to enjoy!
Jackie

Oh Karen,
How I wish I could strall through your beautiful garden! I would probably melt into pieces. It is so relaxing,colorful and pretty!
Thanks for sharing
Teresa

Yes it is a beautiful garden. Thanks for sharing it with us and we look forward to an end to your drought. I don't know how you take care of such a big garden, but you do it well.

Yardrat

*picks jaw up off floor*

I can only imagine the amount of work that has gone into creating your corner of Eden. It does indeed look like a botanical garden.

BTW, my hubby would kill for your lightpost! LOL

Thank you all for your kind words about the gardens; they are very much appreciated! The lightpost was purchased at a closeout store (Big Lots) about three years ago for approx. $60. It is aluminum and has beveled glass lamp shades. The light is rather petite and stands right around 6' tall, but we have it mounted on an old cement fountain pedestal for added height. We wish now we'd bought a pair of them.
This summer has been the hottest one we can remember in recent decades with day after day in the 90's. Since we have had no significant rain since early June, the plants were getting rather crispy despite daily watering and the pond levels dropped almost 4' since it is springfed. We were worried the fish would be swimming sideways soon! I am thrilled to report we finally received a truly Heaven-sent thunderstorm tonight which provided us with one inch of rain. I was so happy I sat out on the screen porch just to watch (and smell) it come down. We are keeping our fingers crossed that there will be more rain where this came from.
Once again, thank you very much, this is such a friendly forum! Karen

Awesome!
I just can't find the words to describe your garden.
It's one of the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen.
Eliza Ann

Unbelievable! The 'view-from-the-gazebo' photo is out of this world...
How BIG is your property? Each of your "thematic pockets" seems to be the size of my entire lot.
Wonderful, wonderful job!

What alot of wonderful work, it really is outstanding!!!

Karen...I am new to the forum and to gardening and I have gotten so much inspiration from all of you. Thank you for sharing your amazing way of decorating our "terra firma."

To many others on this thread, thank you for all your photos. I have been "lurking" for a while now and finally decided to join in! :-)

Jain from California...especially have enjoyed your beautiful art of gardening as well!

Karen,
How beautiful!
Sissy

What a beautiful garden! Just wondering how many years you've been working on it?

Karen
I really enjoyed your pictures of your garden. It is quite a work of art. It is so nice to see pictures something green and blooming in the middle of winter. Thanks for sharing.

Another Karen

Happy Holidays! Thank you, and I'm glad you enjoyed the garden. Katnip, we've been building the garden for almost 20 years. My DH and I have had the help of our two sons since they were little, and we've all done the work together. The boys and the garden grew up together and we're just growing old. lol

Spring seems a long way off, doesn't it? But in a few weeks I'll have the annual flower seeds planted and we'll start this whole cycle over again. Thank you once again. Karen

Beautiful. I thought I was in a botanical garden somewhere!!!

Wow! Wow! Wow!
Can you come help me in my garden! =P
Beautiful!

Hi Josette & Breezy, it's great to meet you! Sure, Breezy, I'd love to come see your garden, but Texas is SO far from Wisconsin, the commute would be a bit long. ;-) Karen

Karen, you have an amazing garden. I especially like the conifers and water feature. Then again , I'm kind of partial to that aspect of gardening. Thanks for posting your pictures, it gives others , including me, inspiration for future projects. Thanks, ^^^Dan^^^

Karen you have an extremely beautiful garden! You just gave me inspiration to work on my garden. Thank you!

I just found your photos. This is not a garden, it's a botanical park. I will return again and again.
Renee

Thank you so much for the compliments! If you are interested, there are a bunch of photos here; just click on the lily:
{{gwi:61386}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Quarry Garden Stained Glass

Your gardens are absolutely beautiful! Who does all that mowing? Did you design your gardens or hire a professional landscape designer to do it. Did I see where all these pictures were taken in 2005? What does it look like 5 yrs. later?

Thank you, Pippi! Yes, the pictures were taken in 2005, so things have matured and changed quite a bit. I should take more pictures this July/August when color is at its peak around here, right now I'm trying to get my annuals in the ground.

We didn't hire any landscape designers (probably should have?) and did the work ourselves over the last 25 years. I do most of the mowing, which is a job I love.

If you're interested, a couple of posts up, there's a link to my photo album and also one to my blog where I go on at length about all the mayhem and madness in the gardens on an almost daily basis. Lately we've been doing more destruction than construction, though I think the end result will be ok.

Nice to meet you!
Karen

As I previously wrote my compliments on your beautiful photos of your garden. There's only one thing you could do to improve those photos..put names of flowers along with the photos. It helps in case somebody likes something and wants to use it as inspiration in their own garden. I have heard that different monitors show up colors differently. You look like there's a lot of orange flowers used, but far away, I can't identify the flowers. I'm computer challenged and don't know how to post pictures period so I shouldn't be giving anybody suggestions. It must be very satisfying to look out at all that beauty and know you did it all yourself. Bet you get a lot of visitors that want to tour your gardens. Can you please tell me where you purchased that adorable garden stone/stepping stone?