Irene's Garden Part III

We start with whimsy the first thing in this post and I know a lot of you all love whimsy! This bowling ball 'caterpillar' is a lot of fun. The bowling balls for this garden caterpillar actually came from my garden. Irene posted on Freecycle.org that she desired some bowling balls and since I am cleaning my garden up I told her she could have mine. Have you ever participated in a Yahoo email group? That is what Freecycle does. Freecyle is actually a email group of local people who are interested in keeping things out of the dump while sharing with others. So, for instance you happen to have a lot of extra bowling balls or irises and someone needs some you can send an email to the group and offer your extras and the person who may need them will respond. It is then up to you to set a place and time to transfer the items. This needs to be done with common sense as meeting strangers can be a not so good experience. Fortunately, I've been very lucky in many of my dealings with Freecycle members. This is actually how I initially met Irene and her husband. They responded to an email I sent giving away irises. I am betting those irises are still growing well in Irene's garden. You just never know who you might meet on Freecycle as I've met a lot of people who have the same interests as me. Oftentimes we become good friends as in the case of Irene and I.

Here is the other side of Irene's foundation garden. Don't you love the curved sidewalk? We had curved sidewalks poured at our new house too. I don't know why more people don't do the curved sidewalks as they make getting to the front door easier than walking along all those right angles. As a bonus, your garden will be less formal with curves versus straight angles.

More of the foundation beds.

Here we have evergreens mixed with deciduous plants. Even when the 'Red Rooster' is bare of leaves the spent seedpods provide winter interest. I love the variety here and am a stern believer that foundation gardens need not be all evergreen boxwoods. I will soon be posting some pictures of my new foundation beds at Tiger Way Gardens. 

This butterfly garden out in the field was really lovely. Irene had taken old tires and painted them bright colors with her grandson, and then filled the tires with soil and planted plants. Mainly drought tolerant plants and plants that need good drainage or need to be contained. This garden was a hot, hot garden; which is good for butterflies.

Now here is the big greenhouses a thing of beauty and what most of us would love to have in our gardens-me included!

An ornamental garden looking toward the raised vegetable beds.

'Henry Eiler' coneflowers were stunning on this hot August day.

Lastly, I leave you with a long shot from the driveway. This is indeed a country garden with lots of great vistas and nice diverse plant material....

in the garden....

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden