My Lost & Found GARDEN...Early Spring April 2010

Some fragrant Wisteria I found on my morning walk & brought home

I am going to do some entries about my garden , and they will be mostly titled my Lost & Found garden , for various reasons. No. 1 reason is my very favorite thing to do with my gardens is find something that was discarded or cast aside...and use it in my gardens. No. 2 reason is I found and created my gardens ( I have one in my backyard , and a few in my front yard ), when I was going through a unrestful, stressful time in my life...and I  found that they help me find myself and more importantly find God.
Peace, personal insights, and God-insights and lessons can be ' found ' in your garden.
Try it.

Here is me a few days ago, in a sea of weed, as I have neglected my garden over the Winter, and now I am paying.
Payment required is very sore hands and fingers from hours of pulling.
Dividend is a cleaner garden, for about a week, until all the weeds come back.

This is another area of my back garden that I created, I started the main back garden out of a  plain yard of weeds, grass and clover ...and then I had a vision to make a garden with an octagon shaped center rose garden. After I dug up the center of the garden, I have always done all of the manual labor myself ( still do ) , though I do get my husband to help move very large items...unless I am dumb and can't wait for him and do it myself.
Which happens about 90 % of the time.
I have the patience of a gnat.
But gardening teaches patience as we have to wait for the seasons, wait for the buds and blossoms, wait for the rain...lots of waiting...and learning diligent patience.

Here is a shot of my lazy , sleepy garden watch-dog.


After I spent 100's of dollars on rose bushes, sprays, fertilizers...black spot devoured bush after bush and I pitched them all. My little boy always kept sticking himself with the thorns as well...so adios roses..come on in cottage garden plants.

Here I am on the second day of work, considering what to do with my garden. Always considering .
We gardeners have to walk around our gardens often, look at the windows from the inside out to decide what we want to ' see. "

Here is my center focal trellis, I used to have roses growing on this, but then I replaced them with trumpet vine. I 'll take some more shots when they bloom, they have their buds all ready  !

See my two large pots ? I found these on the side of the road about 6 years ago, payed my teenage son and his friend 20.00 each to pick them up in his car and haul them back for me. Wait... I know I told him I would but can't remember if I ever did pay them. I think I bought him and his friend some pizzas and they forgot.
Lucky me.
I will get some flowers soon for the planters, I especially like dragonwing begonias in these. Behind me is a path I dug up that we lay mulch down on. The dog usually scatters all the mulch when she chases squirrels though.
Gotta go get some more.

Here is my assistant photographer, but this time his best friend took our picture. I am the one to the left with her attractive garden rubber blue shoes on, he is the happy faced one to the right who had been playing wayyyy too much Wii all day. Had to kick those two munchkins out of the house and into the sun.
I am pretty much anti-Wii, anti-Nintendo, etc. Santa bought him the Wii for Christmas with Mrs. Claus telling him he was nuts to do so.
I firmly believe kids need to be outside playing real games , being active and getting fresh air... and not TV-games.
I laid the center bricks here, all discarded bricks from various places I find on my walks. I like the clay old bricks, with nicks and bumps. I laid them into the dirt with no cement backing...just like I see them done in Charleston, SC gardens on my walks there. I did use dirt and sand as a filler for the cracks, bumped them into place with each other, and viola'...I have a center brick accent area !

Here is a picture from the end of last Summer. See how they ( the bricks ) are not perfect ? Drives my husband nuts when they are not perfect, but I feel perfection is over-rated in most things. I planted a plant in the center fountain, as it broke ( the basin cracked badly ). My birds are upset, but I use my professional watering system ( me and my sprinkler ), and I move it around and they bathe and chat in there.
We will get another basin soon. I loved my center fountain !
Oh, I found most of these bricks from the side of a road in my neighborhood , a large house had burnt down, and they were rebuilding. All of these bricks were laying on the side of  the road, calling to me.They smelled like smoke for a good 3-4 years, but now they smell like dirt. I am guessing , as the smell of smoke is gone. I just recently told the former owner of the house that burnt down that I had taken his bricks and used them in my garden.
He was quite pleased with that.
Excellent recycling.

Front view, you can see cannas, lambs ear, perennials,and I planted all the bushes and 3 trees...plus all my flowers. Again, this was from last Summer. Below is how it looks now.
Potential lurks.

Ok, we are back here in the early Spring , this week. Weeds pulled, some new perennials coming up , and a statue left from my fountain in the center. This will all start to look great when I get some flowers and everything comes into bloom. I will post additional photos to show you the progress.

A close-up of one of those huge, heavy pots I found thrown on the side of the road. It had cement all over it, so I chipped it off with a hammer and chisel the best I could. I moved these from the back of my garden to the front to flank the front view of the garden. These were an example of me NOT waiting for my husband to come home to help me move something heavy , and as I rolled them across the yard, then used a dolly part-way...I got mad at myself.
But, got them where I wanted them..important outcome.
Sore back and arms though.

I laid out these gravel pavers and bricks about 6 years ago as well , hard work, but I wanted a pathway to my husband's palace ( his workshop ), and this worked out well. They are half-covered with sand, dirt and fallen Camilla blossoms right now.

My clean slate to start getting this garden ship-shape again before the extreme humidity here in the Deep South and the bad mosquitoes dampen my enthusiasm. I will take more pictures soon of the progress , it will looks so much better soon !!

My wheelbarrow tire is flat, so I have to lug this big red bin around for all my weeds. Have to go get some more work done,


Blessings to you and your garden,
Gina

" Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. " 2 Corinthians 5:17