Beautiful Redheads and Beautiful Flowers

What I do when I'm not blogging. If you click on the pictures you can see the weeds. Clicking on the daylily pictures is waaaaaaaaay fun! Great way to see the intricate edges...

In order for my husband and I to be able to communicate when we discuss the property every area has a name. Hence we have the front yard, back yard, side yard, east lawn, the mound, croquet field, meditation garden, cutting garden, veggie garden, herb garden, the gully, and each of the seven daylily beds has a number. Behind the three or so acres that is planted is several acres of undeveloped area we call the DMZ...

Update: I might add that we started about 10 years ago with nothing. Not one tree, shrub, flower, or blade of grass. There wasn't even a driveway. Just an unpainted box with a front and back deck and five acres of knapweed - the most noxious of all weeds. We did all this armed with only a garden fork and a shovel. I don't even own a rototiller. Only the driveway and the daylily beds were done with the help of "real" equipment.

We planted every tree, over 150 lilac bushes from starts acquired on an empty lot (with permission), and planted grass with Costco seed. Many of the trees came from Henry Fields and the rest wherever I could find a good deal. If my friends had a baby tree sprout up in their yard I took it off their hands. I picked up two rosa rugosa at a farmer's market and now have about 50 of these sweet smelling shrubs.

In the gully I sprayed diligently for weeds (still do), and collected seed in the autumn from farms across the area that had different types of grains and wheat growing to populate that area. All thinned iris, lambs ear, oregano, and mint go to the gully. Free is good! I learned that when I was about 5 years old and dragged home some iris from the trash pile behind a house in our neighborhood. Fifty nine years later I'm still dragging home orphan plants.

Welcome to the "little yellow box" - entry drive

Back yard. Poor St. Francis is buried in the flowers

More back yard with some of my 1500 or so feet of hose. It takes up to 500 feet just to get to the gully. I really should have bought stock in a hose company...



The back yard is filled with Stargazer and other Oriental lilies. The smell is delicious!

The gully - grass and wildflowers

Meditation garden with a lovely statue of Mary (and more hose) That cute little tractor is one of my prized possessions. It's a self-propelled sprinkler that we put on at night and it chugs along for 7 or 8 hours spewing water. It does an area of about 150 feet by 40 feet wide. Now if I just owned a full size tractor...
Even with the tractor going at night, when the weather is hot (like it is now), we have three spigots (two with splitters) going full blast 24/7

Outside the meditation garden looking toward the "croquet field"

A portion of the cutting garden -meditation garden in background. The house that is visible is actually about two acres away. The property slopes in the back giving the appearance in this photo that the house is very close.

One of my hiding places

One of four Siberian Iris beds - post bloom

East Lawn in front

One of the Spacecoast daylilies

Sunshine Splendor (and gosh - more hose) The white door leaning on the tool shed is going to be part of my new cold frame

One of the front daylily beds -

Outside the meditation garden - the mound

Seurat

Custard Candy

Ed Murray

Looking toward "croquet field"

Eruption

Ben Adams

Ed Brown

No, Stacy McCain's wife is not the only beautiful redhead in the world (but she is in the top ten). From another beautiful redhead, Blessings Each Day, comes this wonderful and uplifting Sunday reading. I "kid" you not....