I enjoy all your great comments! THANKS so much for taking the time to let me know you enjoyed my photos. Cindy, I have trees everywhere! In fact, the only spots in my yard in full-sun are the long borders by the road. Every place else my flowers compete with the shade from trees. I don't have the money or means to have so many trees taken down since my 1 acre lot was all woodland at one point and there are still many huge trees about. Obviously it would be ideal to have more sun but surprisingly my flowers do exceptionally well with dappled shade most of the day and about 3-4 hrs. of full sun. Rena, your comments had me giggling. I am so happy I don't have to deal with snakes here. I have only seen one snake in the past few years and it was just a harmless garter snake. But it was enough to make me jump! When I lived in south Georgia as a kid I remember always freaking out with all the poisonous snakes everywhere....so glad we don't have those kinds here. Avedon, So great to hear from you!! I always enjoy chatting with you here. I am going to get even busier than I already am. My second grandson was just born and now my oldest daughter is pregnant & due in early June. She lives with us (unexpected pregnancy and she will be a single mom) which means more baby duty than ever! So with Mom and 3 grandbabies to look after I hope I have time for all my gardens...(and my housework). Jean, you know I will post more for you from my photo vault because you are always so appreciative! I took so many photos last summer but didn't have the time to post all of them. I don't know if I can keep up with posting this summer what with the 3 grandbabies and my Mom to take care of, so I'm trying to put up as many photos as I can now. Winter is such a long & dreary season, especially up here in the north and I won't have roses til June or daylilies until July. Photos help beat the blues we all have this time of year. I'm so glad you enjoy them! Celeste

Thanks. I think everyone here knows that I really enjoy my garden. I like the fact that I have so much diversity that there is always something going on. The daylilies. lilies and roses are the stars of the summer garden here but afew years ago when I started with Iris was when I focused more on extending the spring show. Now I am adding spring bulbs. I want it to start with the crocus and Daffodils, go to the tulips then Dutch Iris. Then pick up with the Siberian and Tall Bearded Iris. Somehere in there the Clematis bloom. That brings us to the roses blooming and right after the Asiatic Lilies. After the Asiatics the Oriental and hybred lilies bloom while the daylilies start up. The daylily season is long around here as I have many, many late and extra late bloomers as well as my main daylily beds. Along about when the main daylily bloom is done in July, the roses have their second flush of the year. After that the sedums start their bloom. Summerlong color is added by various and many honeysuckles I have here as well as some of the perennials like Coneflowers, Shasta Daiseys, Hollyhocks, Agastache and yarrow. Adding to all of this are my favorite annuals that bloom summerlong. PLus I have numberous flowering shrubs that start in spring and go in sucession until summer like Serviceberries, Various Viburnum, Azealas, and lots more that I am forgetting to name. It is a very busy garden and I love it that way.

Rita, I always kill a few in the spring and early summer but mostly, they are young ones. I think though, that where theres smoke there's fire. Mama snake has to be around someplace. Chris, for a few years, I thought the babies were earthworms until I finally noticed how they crawl. I saved one I had killed and had it identified. I don't need to tell you that I look for and expect to see them here. I found a 3 foot rat snake in the middle of my back yard a couple of days ago but let him go because of his diet. I hate all snakes though.. Kay, don't you ever see them in your area? I think that the best snakes are the dead ones!! Squirelly Pete! I have a long fron porch and have gates at the bannister to keep critters off but I am surrounded by woods and there's lots of wild life. Some are not nice. There have been black bears seen very close by and I try to be aware of my surroundings anytime I am outside. We have tons of dogs ( my husband hunts) both beagles and tree hounds and the noise they make help to keep the critters at bay. I suppose they don't know ( critters) that the dogs are on chains.. Hahaha!! I won't tell if you won't! Ellie

Dorothy, Thanks for sharing your precious memories too. I bet it was a shock to find yourselves somewhere that you couldn't grow okra! Summertime just isn't summertime without okra growing in the garden. Mary, How blessed we are to be able to look at our gardens and to somehow see in them some long-ago garden that meant so much to us. Jen, Well, all I can think of is that your old house was haunted by a non-gardener. Otherwise, I cannot imagine things not growing for you. Isn't it something how much we're influenced by plants once grown by people we love? We wrap up those precious memories and carry them inside our gardening souls, and when we get a chance, we pull them out and use our memories of those to turn a bare patch of ground, or a front porch with container plants, into a familiar planting area that tugs at our heartstrings. I confess that our home has family influences in the same way. Perhaps because my grandparents' homes were country homes when I was a child, I found myself recreating their country homes when we built our country home here. I had to have a screened porch because I always loved my grandmother's screened porch that she had at their country place when I was a very, very young child. I had to have a white picket fence, a round silver stock tank and a windmill for the same reason, though their windmill actually worked and mine is merely decorative. I had to have a barn, though theirs was a white sheep barn and ours is a red, barn-style garage. I had to have geraniums in our first years here, because she always grew geraniums there. I could go on and on, but it sort of astonishes me how well I remember certain things about that house because I think I was only about 5 or 6 years old when they moved away from the ranch to a little country town. I also didn't deliberately set out to make our country home have similar features to theirs, and yet, it happened. Do you know what I have to remind me of my grandfather's small town house where they lived after they sold the ranch? Grass burs. Common stickers. He was forever walking around the yard, yanking them out of the ground so they couldn't reseed. Now I do the same thing. That's not really a good thing, but it is what it is, and it is a family tradition of sorts that makes me chuckle. When we first moved here, we were so crazy about country living that we just had to sleep with the bedroom windows open so we could listen to all the night sounds. I especially loved to hear the mourning doves cooing early in the day as it reminded me of being at my grandparents' home and hearing the same cooing in the hours before sunrise. I even liked hearing the faraway sound of a train coming down the train tracks just like I would hear at night at their place. After the frogs started having regular conventions and croaking so loudly all night long that we couldn't sleep for all the racket, we gave up sleeping with the windows open. I still get to hear the mourning doves cooing early in the day when I first go outdoors. Strolls down memory lane are so much fun! Dawn