Hi Annie, I am a lurker on the cottage garden site, only post once in awhile. Your garden is lovely, much more shade than I had envisioned since I knew you were in OK. You have put alot of thought and creativity into your plantings. Love the butterfly on flower pictures.
roseberri

Annie, such a wonderful garden! Absolutely lovely. Also, I visited your memorial site to Charlie. (((hugs))). I can't imagine losing a child, but I know his energy is still around you. I wish you joy and laughter in your life and garden.

Loved the walk through your gardens - they are so much like mine - semi controlled chaos. I can see myself sitting anywhere in them watching nature enjoy your serendipity work. Each slide brought a smile to my face - thanks for sharing .....

Lynne

I enjoyed the "tour" of your gardens! :-)

Thanks,
Cameron

Beautiful Annie, I like slide shows.

(I was experimenting with my camera today as well. Tried posting a video, had to direct link to Photobucket in order for it to post here. Not sure how it works).

Thank you my people!

I notice that it skipped a few pics and put at least one title with the wrong frame. Weird things happen!

It is so hot out there! My chickens are huddled in one corner, panting, even though they have gobs of shade over their run and cool, fresh water to drink. I sprayed up into the trees yesterday to help cool their pen. They took off running for dear life and screaming their heads off in complete terror. Poor little dummies.

It is so hot my dogs will NOT go out for their walks until almost dark or after dark. Not even Bonnie who is not usually bothered by the heat. I opened the back door early this morning so they could go do their business, and all three of them turned around abruptly, and ran back into the living room. Sheppie even got under my computer desk, for fear that I would make him go out. Too hot.

I have tomatoes making though, and that is better than most people around here. When it is too hot, they won't set fruit, but mine are. Can't wait for my first batch of Fried Green Tomatoes. I will have fresh garden tomatoes for the Fourth of July picnic. Yippee!

Caterpillars have pocked-holed all my broccoli...again. I thought it was grasshoppers, but I checked the leaves yesterday evening and it is caterpillars. Several kinds on each plant. Man! I am so upset. I squished them good. Go eat someplace else, dad gum ya!

No squash yet. Not one Zuch nor one Crookneck. Hmmm. Same thing happened last year. And the plants are slow in growing. I usually have gigantic squash plants and tons of fruit by now. Can't win for losing!

The Ground Cherries are growing like sixty. They look fantastic!

I've been harvesting Italian Flat-leaf Parsley and Genovese Basil and it is so good to have my old friends back in the kitchen. I love, love, love Basil. Time to start my Pesto making again. Soon it will salsa making time and there will be tons of tomatoes to dice and can and some to make into sauce. There will be some to sundry and some to just enjoy fresh with the heat of the sun's awesome energy still in them.

Most of the fruit on the fruit trees dropped when the heat hit in late May. I got just enough cherries to make a pint or two of Cherry preserves. Most of the peaches dropped. All of the plums dropped. So far, all of the pears are doing great. They will be ready in October or November.

I have a young man, a boy really, who is coming sometime soon to give me an estimate for finishing my Pergola over the patio. I know how to build it - I just can't do the heavy lifting or climb ladders anymore. Anywho, I am hopeful he will get that done for me. I will supervise to make sure it gets done the way I want it done. That will keep a lot of heat out of my kitchen in the summer and give the cats a shady place to lay. I will take my coffees and teas out there and just sit and enjoy my garden - the birds and the bees and the peppermint trees. :) I can set my big Tropical plants out there and hang my shade-loving houseplants from the rafters and run the mister on them every morning. I might even have him put a little ceiling fan in the ceiling for me. Who knows! It will be lovely. (I dream, but that is my plan, anyway).

Life on the funny farm!

~Annie

All my peaches and plums dropped too, save one peach. Will be interesting to see how long it survives.

I love your garden, its the kind of garden I would love to hang out in, some day I hope mine look that good

Bear

Absolutely wonderful - so charming, personal, and gorgeous at the same time. I love the love you can feel when you see these pictures of a real garden built by a real gardener - not a landscape creation but memories and one thing leads to the next and nature making decisions sometimes...

Wonderful! What is that especially nice coral/pink daylily toward the middle-end of the deck? it reminds me of a couple I have and love especially.

Cindy,
Are asking about the one next to the pink Double Delight Coneflower? I don't remember the name of that one Cindy. It came from Mexico. It is a copy-cat of one sold here in the USA. That is all I know. Pretty pretty coral colors. The plants were so tiny last year and did not bloom. This year they went bonkers and grew huge and non-stop blooming! Ole!

Bear and Cindy:
Thank you for taking the tour and your sweet comments.

It is so hot and the sun so glaring that everything is cast with this eerie yellow light. You can see that yellow casting on the green plants and trees in quite a number of my images. That is not a fluke of the camera - that is a correct capture of this weird lighting. It is blazing hot and that glaring yellow light makes your eyes tell your brain that it is even hotter. I don't like it. Nopers. Evenings are nicer, but still too hot. The Chimney Swifts and Flycatchers are keeping the mosquito population down for the time being. Bless their little hearts. Caterpillars ate up my broccoli and cabbage. The bush beans were puny and pods rather scarce. No squash yet. The Cherokee Trail of Tears pole beans are doing great. I am hopeful I'll get beans from them (thank you my friend Annette for the seeds). I do have gobs of tomatoes making, so that is a blessing, anyway. I am growing 7 varieties of tomatoes this year.

Anyway, an acre and a half of garden to take care of is too much to handle on my own anymore, so it gets away from me. I am not that old, but my body is. My dad says it is because I have worked too hard all my life and wore my body out. I think it is just genetics. Anyway, I like the wildness of it. Suits me just fine. Everyone who comes here tells me how "peaceful" it is out here amongst the flowers and my critters.

Thanks to you all.
~Annie

annie your garden is unbelievable...it looks HUGE...and you have a bit of everything....wildflowers, water, etc. just want to jump into those photos!

Annie - if you look back at my posts this spring there was a whole lot of overwhelmed way-too-muchness in my state of mind. Honestly it is really totally ridiculous to take care of what I have and I really haven't posted all of it - we have that HUGE vegetable garden, an orchard with 25 fruit trees and a big acre+pond. While we don't keep it all up, it all requires upkeep in some way.

When I was in Ohio for work I had this tiny little condo with a postage stamp garden - I had some flowering shrubs and a little fountain, but I filled the containers with annuals, grew dahlias and enjoyed a lot of pleasurable glasses of wine out there. All my friends thought it was wonderful.

Somewhere between that tiny garden and my mega acres is a happy medium of garden pleasure without the overwhelmed factor. I just haven't found it yet.

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Your gardens are just charming Annie, just like their creator :-) You have such a wide variety of plants, and they all seem comfortably at home in their green garden setting.

Is that white phlox 'David'? It's so pretty.

What kind of hydrangea is that? It has such looong panicles.

Thanks for the tour!

Annie - I apologize I did not mean to hijack your post with your wonderful garden. I was actually thinking I was posting on my thread - just thinking about the huge variety in scale between your wonderful gardens and the little tiny place I had in Ohio.

Sorry. :)

Annie, I haven't visited in a long time on this forum but seeing pictures of your garden was like coming home. Lovely!

Thank you all so much.

GG,
You flatterer you. Thanks sweetie.
Yes that is Phlox paniculata Davidii (David). Such a big name for such a little Garden Phlox. Well, the plants are not as tall as my other garden phlox, but the blooms are a bit bigger. It is a fabulous garden phlox. I bought one plant several years ago, but it just kinda sat there where I planted. It bloomed and all every year, but did not multiply much at all. This year I decided it needed a new residence - it was in the wrong place, so I divided it and planted the divisions in four locations. Two really took off in their new spots. One is doing okay but not growing as much as it's two siblings just across the pathway. The fourth one is stunted. It is blooming but is only half as big as the other three. I am going to move it. It does not like that area. I think I will move it down to the Patio Garden. It seems to like more moisture, so that will be a good place for it and the beautiful white blooms will be like a white diamond among the other flowers. It is a lovely addition to any garden. A very elegant phlox.
I can send you a slip of it in September, if you want one.

The Hydrangea is an Oakleaf Hydrangea. It is my favorite. They get really big and bloom on and on and on. The blooms are humongous! They start out small and get bigger and longer. As the white blooms age, they turn pink, then get rusty speckles or freckles on them and the pink gets deeper. Red freckles get bigger and bigger as the bloom ages and then the red freckles fade until it has a cream color. like a pale amber. Some lighter shades and some more towards browns. It has super fragrance like you wouldn't believe. Yummy, semi-strong old-fashioned fragrance. The blooms come on at different times, so they are all in different stages of size and colors. Just a fantastic plant.
I have not been successful at rooting any cuttings yet, but I keep trying. I would love to have a couple more in other shady areas. It gets full sun in the morning and shade all afternoon. Likes moist, but well drained soil.

Oh! I wanted to tell you that I used your stepladder idea for growing tomatoes this year. It is working great and looks so cute. The only problem with it is that my half-Siamese cat, Mai Ling, uses it as her lookout point. She sits up there on top every day while I am working in the garden. She likes to watch me - see where I am at. She accidentally broke off a limb. I hope that is the only one that gets snapped off.

Cindy, I didn't feel hijacked! Pish posh. You were just showing us visually what you had stated earlier about your apartment garden (which btw was gorgeous).
Not to worry.

freezengirl, I hope you aren't "freezen" right now! I am happy you came on my topic and looked at my humble garden pics. It isn't fancy, but it's home. It's a great place to play Hide and Seek with my grandkids. Lots of places to hide! (hehehe)

This year I have more varieties of butterflies and dragonflies then I ever did before. I keep trying to capture them on camera, but they are too elusive. Very camera shy. I have had several Dragonflies lite on my shoulder and a few butterflies have landed on my hand and head. It is a real trip when they do that. It is supposed to be good luck. I think the good luck part of it is that they actually land on me in the first place. Awesome!

Good night all!

~Annie