Click thumbnails for larger versions of the photos.
This is just a small bed of the many hosta plants I have all around my yard and the woods surrounding. These have been in full bloom for a couple of weeks now, and are almost finished. It seems every single seed germinates and makes a new plant, they spread so fast, and every year I have more and more of them.. I give them away by the dozens and still they keep spreading.. I’ve lined a path in the woods with them and have now started planting them in clumps in the woods surrounding the yard. The photo is of a small cluster of hostas at the end of my yard, on a slope near an outdoor fireplace.
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The rose of sharon bushes (trees) are in full bloom right now. I have pink ones and white ones and several shades of purple. Some of these bushes are more than 10 feet tall. Pretty, but messy with all their falling flowers every day. :) I pull up seedlings by the dozens all over the yard, every summer.
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This is my ivy arbor. The old cast iron pot belonged to my great grandmother. It used to hang by chains in this arbor, and I always worried that it would fall, so hubby took away the chains and now it sits on the ground below the ivy. Right now, it’s filled with coleus and a couple of vincas. The ivy is very rampant, and I have to prune it several times a year to keep it confined to the arbor. My purple leaved flowering plum tree can be seen in the background.
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Looking out my living room window: pink impatiens in a window box planter on my front porch rail. The plants are huge now, and filled with flowers.
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Red Tip Photinia
This is my red tip photinia shrub (tree). I prune it frequently, and all the new growth is red. This is a nice evergreen shrub with glossy leaves, and it’s about 7′ tall right now. It grows very fast and will become leggy and grow to about 15′ tall if not pruned. This shrub makes a good screen or hedge, and the red leaves are very striking against the dark green of the older growth.
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(left to right) 1. The butterfly bushes are in full bloom right now. This is an easy to grow shrub, and is almost evergreen here. I cut it to the ground every other year, and it grows to about 7 or 8 feet tall every summer. 2. A hanging pot of coleus, on a privacy fence at the far end of the yard. 3. Tomatoes.. dozens of tomatoes. :)
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The edge of the front yard; plants include miscellaneous evergreen shrubs and my lamp post with a container of annuals at the base of it. My red tip bush can be seen in the background. I love growing mixed annuals in containers; it’s easy to experiment with different color combinations.
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A long narrow bed along the edge of the driveway, filled with mixed color dianthus (pinks), and purple verbena. Although the dianthus are sold as annuals here, they come back year after year, and are one of my favorite flowers.
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Huge leaves of a young princess tree, also known as royal paulownia or empress tree. I wouldn’t recommend this tree, as they can become very invasive in the south. We cut this one down every fall, and it sprouts again in the late spring. The young leaves are absolutely huge, and the tree grows up to 20′ tall in one season. If the trees are allowed to grow, they become very tall very quickly, and as the wood is hollow, the limbs are very brittle and easily broken, and the mature trees are unstable and dangerous. These trees flower at about 8 yrs old, with long, wisteria-like clusters of fragrant purple flowers, followed by brown seed pods.
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(left to right) 1. Penta flowers after a light rain shower. 2. Hosta lilies lining a pathway into the woods. 3. Red salvia in bloom.
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Front Flower Beds
New rock wall flower bed
great photos, you have a lot of pretty flowers. I have a new red tip bush, its just small right now, I”m hoping it will grow as well as yours has.
Thank you Emily. I’m sure your red tip bush will start to grow quickly once it’s established! :) If you like them, you can also propagate them easily enough, I have rooted several cuttings from mine. They’re really a nice accent plant at the edge of the yard. Good luck with yours!
Thank you for visiting.
love your ivy arbor, it looks so neat! wonderful photos.
Your yard is so pretty, everything looks so neat and colorful. I have enjoyed looking at all your photos.
You have a beautiful yard! Thanks for sharing it with us.
Thank you Maggie, I appreciate your visit and your comments.
Your ivy arbor is beautiful, as is the rest of your yard.
thank you cindy!
Thanks for the info regarding Paulownia tomentosa (Empress tree). I live in Michigan (zone 5) and NEED shade fast! I was investigating the Empress tree, drawn in by the incredible claims of promised ‘fast shade’. I was initially concerned of its’ non-native origin…non-natives tend to be invasive…as you mentioned. I suppose I could grow the Empress tree until another planting has time to reach a beneficial height and then remove it…
If anyone has any suggestions on fast shade providing trees, I would love to hear them. I am in zone 5, full sun, and mostly sandy soil. We have the ‘neighborhood pool’ in our backyard, so I am outside – keeping an eye on the kids most of the time. My husband and I have gone round and round over arbors, pergolas, arches, and the like…I have lost the battle; however, he has ‘oked’ a tree.
Thanks!
Karen, the Empress trees are very hard to get rid of here once they have taken root. Even after cutting them to the ground, the stumps sprout, and sprouts even come up several feet away. (Zone 7)
Maybe a silver or a red maple tree would work for you? I think they grow fast, and they are pretty trees. We also have a pool, and we have several large white pines nearby — and we also have a lot of pine needles in the pool during times of high winds, so you might also want to think about that if you are considering evergreens, depending on how close the tree will be to your pool. :)
[…] the woods, back down to the slope in the woods behind the house, circles around and ends near the hosta pathway at the edge of our side yard. Even in the midst of the extreme drought we’ve been in for more […]
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Sherry, you have the most beautiful site!! I have a questions regarding your yucca plants. I am not sure if you are in zone 7? Would your yucca be hardy in Oklahoma which is both zone 6 and 7. We are in Oklahoma City which is center of state. Will greatly appreciate your information as you are obviously a wonderful gardener. Thank you, Maryanna
Hi Maryanna,
Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m glad you enjoy the site.
Yes, I’m in zone 7, and the yucca plants I had would be hardy in your area too. Unfortunately, I had to get rid of mine (hubby had to hook chains to them and literally hoist them out of the ground!) They continued to grow and were so big and the dagger-like leaves so sharp that I became concerned about him having to mow around them, and they were beginning to grow out into the pathway I have on that slope, so we decided to get rid of them. (Which is turning out to be more difficult than we thought — we are still having numerous offshoots coming up around where the large ones were planted!) So, definitely they would be hardy for you, just be sure and plant them somewhere where you don’t have to walk near them. The edge of each blade is literally as sharp as a knife. They may start out small but it doesn’t take too many years until they are -huge-!
Hope this helps, and thanks again for visiting.
-Sherry
[…] honeybees (there does not seem to be a shortage of honeybees here!). I have this ivy growing on an arbor in my front yard along with a pink rose, and also on an arch at the entrance to the […]
Plant hostas around rose of sharon bushes it holds down the growth of new ones.
Thanks for the tip, Donna. If I could just make myself prune them right after blooming instead of allowing them to go to seed! :)