Old Fashioned Gardening

I LOVE DIRT!

Soil, to be exact, and what grows in it.

Bugs, not so much, especially with too many legs.

Ew.

I used to be terrified of grasshoppers

til my bro in law told me they tend to jump the direction they are facing.

Now I can sneak up on them with bug killer.

Wishing the yard could have been on the priority list for last month,

but at least the fence is up!

What's in YOUR yard?

Here's what I played with at our old home. I can't wait to start a new field of glory on the acreage.

 This one's a 30 footer.. yeah FOOTER.

It was 20 feet tall and covered most of the front of our old house. Smells delicious!

This is the white version of the popular heirloom flower, Centranthus ruber (red). The flowers attract bees and butterflies. Grow the plant in sun or partial shade in a sandy or well-drained soil. Jupiter's Beard self seeds 'vigorously' (but they are easy to pull when they are small!) and can be used in alkaline or poor soils. I love this with the roses because they bloom at the same time and it looks like baby's breath or mini white lilacs.

 That's a peony-flowering tulip.

 These are SO cool!

 Gotta love IRISES!

 Got these in a few colors.. looks like a fairy took pinking shears to the edges.

 Madame Alfred Carriere... MMMM!!!!!

 The first flower bed 12 years ago.

 About 7 years ago it looked like this. See my small green arches at the bottom of the house between the two windows? That's the 30 footer in it's first season.

Much more in the way of perennials and groundcovers but these are most of the major players... all in the front yard. Yes, that means my front yard had no lawn.

There were several trees out there too... a staghorn, three maples and a nonfruiting flowering pear, as well as some red twig dogwoods.

Tulips are in bloom with the groundcovers and the white lilacs at the moment, daffodils are finished and crocuses/grape hyacinths/hyacinths were done several weeks ago. Soon the irises will bloom out, and then the roses amd jupiter's beard will explode. At the begining I had 40 different roses out there, lost some over the years but still quite the showing. Sometimes I wonder if the people who drive down my street and turn around in front of my house just came to see it all.