Promises Kept

Spring kept its promise.  Here it is!  If you compare the below picture with the one on my last post you will see what I mean. . . .

What a difference!  We came home from England to find our own little lush garden awaiting us.

This is a wild rose that planted itself in the above Azalea bush on the left.  When the Azalea blossoms fade the rose bush takes over. . . .

Coming up the front steps this is what you see. . . .

So much of my garden is self-seeded--like these ferns.  Sometimes I move the self-seeding plants to inside the beds and sometimes I let them have their way. . . .

All the Daisies are self-seeded.  I never planted even one plant.  They just showed up.  I guess they like my garden!  When they finish blooming I just pull out the entire plant if its in a walkway and it returns next year anyway. . . .

Another self-seeding, came from who-knows-where-plant that I have no idea what it is. . . .

I just pull pieces up from the gravel and put it in a pot.  This chicken seems very happy with her showy shawl. . . .

This is one of my potted annuals.  I love the Gypsy Rose Baby's Breath and Pink Bidens together. . . .

A white Wild Rose showed up in this pot so I let it stay and added other renegade plants. . . .

The Ivy-leafed Toadflax has the sweetest little flower.  I don't mind at all that it has grown up between the bricks in my walkway--another visitor that stayed. . . .

I still have a pink Bleeding Heart in bloom behind the Baptisa under the Arborvitae. . . .

This Hummingbird Moth is having a full meal there. . . .

                       

I pruned the Rambling Rose hard in late winter and see I will be rewarded richly soon. . . .

We've had so much rain this Spring that my Clematis is inundated with flowers--there are more growing over the top intermingled with the soon-to-be rose blossoms. . . .

These peonies came with the house 37 years ago, but I moved them out from under some bushes to the "field" so they could get more sun.  But because we did not mow around the bed trees sprung up in the midst and once again I got very few blossoms between the shade and the deer.  So I moved a bunch of the plants into our fenced front yard where once again they can get sun and low and behold Peonies!

You are looking back into the front yard now from the Arbor garden--Climbing Hydrangea on the left and Eden Climbing Rose on the right. . . .

The white Wild Rose has never climbed this high in the Dogwood before.  Its white blossoms obligingly replaced the Dogwood's blossoms. . . .

The bees love the Penstemon which is another self-seeder and plants itself on a whim. . . .

Here the Gladiola amongst the Hosta with Spiderwort and Penstemon in the background along with the Bleeding Heart that has gone out of bloom but continues to grow heartily. . . .

Along the side of the house is Virginia Creeper softening the red brick.  My kitchen window by my little bistro table overlooks the Arbor garden. . . .

Gardening is only something I discovered 28 years ago when my sons were twelve, eight and two.  My garden became for me a place in which to continue to birth new life.  Now that my boys are grown and flown the nest it has become a place to enjoy the fruit of my efforts.  What other endeavor rewards you so abundantly than to plant a garden and reap the bounty of its beauty!