Hi Rosie, I would love your dwarf irises. I have Japanese irises, Japanese maple tree seedlings (small) and a few Lousiana irises that are lovely I can trade. The Japanese irises and Louisiana irises need sun. You don't have to have a lot of room for the Japanese maple tree since I plant them in pots and trim them into different shapes...they don't have to be in the ground. They look great on the patio! Let me know.

Lucky you to have your pretty iris blooming. The color on that last one is just lovely. I am really looking forward to iris season. I have so many new ones that I want to see if they bloom for me and then of course the more established ones have lots more fans so should have lots more blooms. Can't wait.

Thank you all - they are definitely very me whatever that is. I actually had more of a color scheme going originally but somehow they have multiplied into every color and I like it. I do have more pastels in the front and hotter colors as you move behind the deck. The house is not really that big but it's spread out and has a lot of volume. I really like things rather neat if you can imagine that with all this disorder and I like to see a repetition down the garden of something that is starring at the moment - daffodils in a similar tone in the spring, then the peonies and iris, then the daylilies, later it's asters and phlox. You know the funny thing about that CindySunshine name is I totally made it up as I was registering on gardenweb out of nothing - but I am definitely a sunshine girl always have loved summer and sunshine. If you look at that first picture with the front borders, I am standing on the driveway - if you look thru the daylilies (and BTW that is "Cherry Chapeau" that is the brilliant burst of color in the foreground) past the flowers around the lamppost and then the line of big trees, that's where the orchard is - you drive up through it as you go up toward the house. If you turn to your left that's where the butterfly garden is that I posted earlier. We built the house 20 years ago - we literally crawled thru the brush and hacked things down to find that there was a lovely spot up here to build. I was thrilled to find the combination of trees in the background, but sunny areas around the house for my gardens. The ground was really not very good at all - we built it up mostly with just work, compost, mulch, weeding, weeding, weeding, weeding - sometimes I feel like I've spent half my life weeding - LOL. Here's the vegie garden a couple weeks ago before the corn got so tall... Quick view of the pond - I took this several weeks ago (notice the same gazing ball that is now engulfed in stuff in those shots this morning - I was worried at the time about the pedestel it stood on and whether I should paint it - like why bother - LOL. And finally behind the deck - I took this in the spring right after the japanese maples leafed out - my easiest least maintenance area of the garden - all I do is put a handful of fertilizer around them in the spring. They don't even ever get watered, hostas do great. Thank you all. :)

Yikes, it's been a long time since I've been here. It's kind of obvious that you've been away for a while when people start talking about you in third person! :) push mow your old 2 acres, push mow the 1.5 acres where you live now (getting the house ready for your step-Dad's return from Afghanistan)...weed your iris garden, weed your vegetable garden, weed your club's gardens...dig in your old garden, dig in your new garden, work at a dig for the SWMIS club, dig with the ICSEM club, dig donated irises from a friend's garden for the ICSEM sales...plant your new orders, plant your club's orders, replant your old plants, plant at your club's garden...work at the ICSEM's sales (leaving the house at 4am)...water your gardens with gallon jugs then make your life easier by watering with a generator on your new well with 300' of hose, fill out your judges' activity report (and remember you still need 5 hours and 3 one-on-one trainings to become an accredited judge), vote the symposium, write an article on request, become the editor for your region's newsletter.......... busy. Thank-you everyone for your comments. It always makes me glad to hear that the photos are being enjoyed. Renee, your prediction made me lol. :) I'm so hopelessly taken with irises that I don't know that I'll ever have enough money to divert from my iris addi(c)tions! Shadow, thank-you for the link to Stone Cottage Gardens. I had never heard of them and now I plan to learn more.