Eastern Redbud Tree
COZY COTTAGE LIVING ON A BUDGET
Showing posts with label my urban garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my urban garden. Show all posts
Apr 30, 2020
Dec 29, 2015
Tomato Cage Christmas Trees
This morning I woke up early while the house was still cold and dark and quiet. After turning up the furnace, I turned on the little Christmas tree lights out on our back deck and curled up under a blanket in a chair with my coffee to watch the sun rise over our little snow-covered yard and the hills beyond while our house warmed up.
Every winter we wrap some lights around a couple of tomato cages stuck upside down into the dirt of two plant pots on our deck by the steps.
The tomato cage tree shapes are so plain and simple and scraggly that they remind us a little of Charlie Brown Christmas trees.
Sometimes plain and simple and scraggly is just perfect.
It's time for a party!
Share It One More Time Link Party
Share It One More Time Link Party
May 2, 2015
Yay for May!
YAY for May!
Yesterday, I beat the weekend crowds at the nursery and shopped early for my spring plants.
And today's forecast is for perfect planting weather!
Sunshine, here I come!
I hope you have a wonderful day, too!
Join me again this year for the fun and fabulous Elizabeth & Co. Garden Party!
Sep 30, 2014
Our Early Fall Garden
Today I'm happy to have a chance to share some photos of our garden that I took last week. My favorite time of year is fall, and I love the way the garden looks right before we have our first hard frost. It's a transitional time, when the days are still warm enough for the late summer flowers, but cool enough for the early fall ones, too.
I tossed some seeds in the dirt next to my craft room window last summer and then forgot all about them. They didn't seem to mind being neglected, though, and now we have beautiful tall red and yellow sunflowers growing here against the house.
It's always a race against time now to see how many tomatoes will ripen before the first hard frost. Tomatoes are my favorite summer food, and oh how I'll miss them!
The berries that grow over our front gate trellis are so pretty in the fall and winter. We have a beautiful view of these from our dining room window.
We've always loved the idea and look of colorful Buddhist prayer flags. My husband brought me these as a sweet surprise one day last summer to hang between the shed and house.
The tall ornamental grasses have ripened and turned golden. We'll enjoy watching these waving in the cold winter wind all the way until next spring.
This grass is still nice and green, though. Have I mentioned how much we love our new sprinkler system? :)
Our new rose bush crept up the shed trellis just a bit this summer. If it survives the winter, it should really take off next spring.
Our lavender was enormous this summer and is still going strong. We enjoyed having the blooms in the garden and decided not to harvest it this year.
I decided growing herbs in our sunny deck pots is the way to go. Carefree and pretty, this rosemary and thyme needed very little water and attention.
This snap dragon grew from a seed that must have lodged between the paving stones in front of the shed door and the shed wall. It gets squashed every time the door opens and gets no attention whatsoever, but every year it comes back to give us its pretty flowers. We love its spunkiness.
Chrysanthemums, more than any other flower, symbolize a fall garden to me. This is the first one I planted in our new yard after our old tree was cut down. It's blooming here behind the last of the summer blanket flowers.
After our first hard frost, we'll be out in our jackets and boots under the falling leaves, cutting all the summer flowers back and putting the garden to sleep for the winter. Until then, we're enjoying every single day of our early fall garden and the last of the summer flowers.
Thanks for visiting and taking a look around our garden today. I hope you have a wonderful week!
I'm sharing our fall garden today with
Aug 9, 2014
Jul 18, 2014
A Peek Into My Summer Garden
I've been peeking into a little corner of my summer garden today through my camera lens.
My camera helps me see details in my garden that I don't otherwise take the time to notice.
Like how the daisies are growing all the way up to touch the new Fresh Flowers sign hanging on the side of our shed.
And the way these tall lacy flowers fit perfectly beneath the window box
and cascade over their shorter neighbors.
How the lacy yellow petals on one flower complement the bold yellow fringe on the other.
And how the textures of these two so different flowers, when captured together by my camera, help me to appreciate the beauty of the other even more.
I just love how my camera slows me down and opens my eyes wide to details. It lets me see and enjoy my garden in a whole new way.
How about you? Do you peek into your garden through your camera lens?
Please join me as I slow down to smell the roses at these lovely garden parties:
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| Elizabeth & Co. |
Jun 4, 2014
Spring Garden Tour 2014
Spring is just whizzing by here at The North End Loft. The weather has been wonderful, and I've been enjoying a lot of outdoor time the past few weeks. I'm touring our spring garden today in honor of the June Garden Party over at Elizabeth & Co.
Won't you please join me?
Can you spot the elephant in the room? (Garden room, that is.) I almost cut the port-a-potty behind our fence out of this photo, but I thought you might get a kick out of it. Our contractor had it tucked into our trash can space off the alley for the duration of our master suite remodel. It adds that special je ne sait quoi to the garden, don't you think?
My sun collection hangs on the fence in this peaceful corner of our yard.
Chubby Buddha was a gift from my sweet nephew and his wife.
I love getting garden art for Mother's Day because I can enjoy it outside right away after the long winter. This gazing ball supported by three frogs was a gift one year from my husband.
Another unexpected visitor to the yard this spring is the clawfoot tub from our remodel. Hopefully, it will be finding a new owner via craigslist soon. If not, I just may plant flowers in it! The irises really put on a pretty show this year, and the day lilies are getting set to explode with yellow blossoms soon.
My husband's garden gnome keeps the jasmine company. I have two big pots of jasmine on the deck, and the scent perfumes the whole yard and family room when the windows are open.
When we lost our old pale pink rose that grew up the side of our shed to disease last year, we decided to replace it with a more vividly colored one called Joseph's Coat. I can't wait for it to fill the trellis again in a couple of years.
Last year I planted a little four-inch sage plant in the garden, and this spring I transplanted it to a thirteen-inch pot on the deck. It gave us a gorgeous two-foot tall mounded showing of purple blossoms for weeks and is just now starting to fade.
The lavender I planted last year is doing great so far.
Around the side of our yard is our brand new cutting garden. We're still growing tomatoes here among the flowers, but we'll be buying the rest of our fresh produce at our wonderful downtown Capital City Farmer's Market. Hopefully, we'll be enjoying fresh cut flowers all summer.
There are two bird nests nearby, and the birds sit on our trellis and serenade us. To thank them I tucked a thrift store pie plate full of water between the flowers for their bathing pleasure.
Our side yard was spectacular this spring with the clematis and honeysuckle climbing up the trellis and blooming together as the hostas unfolded their huge leaves.
Another Mother's Day gift from my husband this year was two beautiful fuchsias.
The honeysuckle is reaching for an old chippy window frame hanging on the trellis.
Dollar store sunbursts decorate the fence. The more weathered and gray our fence boards become over the years, the more we like them.
A bunny peeks out from the raspberries in a whiskey barrel.
I'm not sharing our front garden yet because the front porch is piled high with lumber for the remodel and not quite as tour-worthy as port-a-potties and clawfoot tubs. I just had to share our new front porch trellis rose, though. We had a pale pink rose here also, but it grew and grew and grew with no end in sight! When I read that we could expect it to be twenty-five feet tall eventually, we gave up trying to keep it tidy on our little trellis and replaced it with this Iceberg Rose variety that should only grow about ten feet tall. In a few years we'll have a beautiful rose covered porch again.
As our tour comes to an end, old Tucker gets a shout-out for being so patient and such good company while I've been taking photos in the garden today.
Gardening, like keeping house, is never ending. Especially in a little urban garden where every square foot is precious, we're always changing things around to make it just right.
It's our labor of love.
I'm so glad you joined me for a tour of our little garden, and I hope you find some time to putter in your own special place today.
Let's party!
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