Music in the Gardens

Many of you have asked for photos of my garden.

With all the rain we've had lately,

everything seems to be happily bursting forth with color and fragrance!

Most plants are budding, pushing their color slowly into the garden ~

while others are dancing and swirling freely in their early summer attire.
There's music in the gardens!

So, grab that cup of coffee, 

slip on your flip flops,

and dance with me through the gardens

here at Heaven's Walk.

♥

The rose bush in my whiskey barrel next to the door

snuggles next to frilly ballerina pink verbena.

A look into the east gardens from the brick path next to the back porch.

Standing in the middle of the east gardens, 

the deep purple lilacs are finished performing

while the white lilacs are quickly fading.
The French lilacs on the right are still blooming beautifully ~
bowing their rain heavy heads toward the earth.

The shady north side gardens are filling in nicely.

My new-last-year arbor will eventually be covered with a cape of soft pink 'New Dawn' roses.

This is the second season in their new home.

The birdbath at the corner of the porch
is a popular pit-stop for a variety of feathered friends.
We've even watched squirrels jump up there for a slurp,
and many times during the winter it will be drained almost dry from the deer sipping from it.

French "Josie" lilacs ~

petite little blossoms that are so full and fragrant.

'Josphine' clematis ~ a large double bloomer that is winding her way up the small arch on the steps of the porch.
The long petals will eventually fall to the ground leaving the zinnia-like centers.

'Nelly Moser' loves her home on the old trellis in the north garden.
She is always a steadfast, happy bloomer towering above the elegant bleeding heart
and dainty sweet woodruff.

Standing in the north gardens.

The plants in my new north garden bed are growing by leaps and bounds.

Hydrangea, roses, hosta, bleeding heart, catmint, 

and a new fir tree.

A female bluebird visits her favorite bath
in the center of the east garden.
I brought the little pale pink cement birdbath home from the antique market a couple months ago
and set it in the middle of the large one.
It created additional space for birds to bath together.

Kind of like a community spa.  :)

Happy hostas pirouette with partying peonies.

Looking toward our barn.
We have plans of renovating it sometime this year before the wood ages too much more.
We don't want to lose this beautiful piece of history which was built long before our farmhouse was.

Sweet, stately foxglove
sprinkled with raindrops.

Crowds of peonies reach toward the sky.

Little Kermit waits for his buddies.
There are 20 of them who join him in the nightly waterfront chorus.

Standing on the outside perimeter of the east garden,

'Zephirine Drouhin' climbs happily over the arbor.
The first bloom made her appearance today.

Her deep pink flowers will soon blanket the arbor and send sweet fragrance throughout the gardens.

'Sarah Bernhardt' peonies tango with 'Walker's Low' catmint.

Dichondra and bacopa spill from a vintage wooden box

next to an old watering can on a wooden bench my husband built for me years ago.

Every time I walk through the gardens, I hear a whisper...

"Abide in Me".

A loving reminder from above
that blesses my soul.




Now....I'm off to prepare Heaven's Walk for a photo shoot with a beloved, nationally known editor.
I'll fill you in on the details later!  :)

Have a joyful week!

~  Be Blessed ~

Linking to the linky parties on the lower right of my sidebar!

Amidst the Blooms

Late springtime flowers hug the old porch with fragrance and color.

'Million Bells' spills deep pink from a rustic pot.

'Henryii' clematis twining around the post.

Sweet English lavender dances with even sweeter roses.

Soft, cushy pillows tossed onto a vintage wicker sofa under an azure sky...

whisper of sleep.

'Walker's Low' catmint lining the brick walk fills the air with invigorating scent.

Shade deepens along the woods hem.

Frilly, feminine 'Josephine' blooms happily on the arbor by the porch.

Tree peony blooms nod heavily.

Their fragrance intensely intoxicating.

Sweet and ruffly 'Sarah Bernhardt' sighs in the warm sunshine.

Fragrant "Knock Out" roses budding yellow sunshine
and opening to vanilla ice cream.

Green embraces white.

Lanterns filled with fairy lights will glow softly with falling dusk.

A catnap amidst the blooms calls to me...

 ~ Blessings ~

Next week Friday (June 1), I'll be guest posting over at Stacey's beautiful blog, A Sort of Fairytale. She's been giving some fabulous house tours, and I was honored to be asked to share my shabby French-Nordic farmhouse with you.
You are cordially invited to join me there!

Linking to the parties on the lower right of my sidebar.

Just click on the buttons.

Garden Bliss...

Good morning, all!  ~

Want to see some real garden bliss?  Some fragrant, head swirling, floral eye candy - and a quaint little visitor to my garden?

After putting a load of laundry in this afternoon, I ventured out into the breezy sunshine to gather up the mail.  My walk to the mailbox, though short enough, always delivers some sort of photo opportunity waiting to be captured. Raindrops on petals, bees so heavy with pollen that it looks like they're wearing little yellow bloomers, a new bud, the pine trees sporting little green gloves of fresh growth, and a quaint little visitor that happened to stop by Heaven's Walk for the day.

So, take a deep breath.........Now close your eyes.........Breath out........

Now open your eyes (otherwise you won't be able to enjoy these photos *wink).

And enjoy some garden bliss.......

Lovely, yes?

As I walked past the front porch, I noticed a little gray something setting on the steps. Hmmmm....I looked closer to discover that what I had thought was a stone, 

was actually what I believed to be a little gray toad.

  Eyes closed. Napping in the sunshine. A picture of total contentment...

He sat there so quietly. Not wanting to be noticed. Not making a sound.

He heaved a big sigh.   

(Well...not really, but I imagined he did. He seemed that happy.) 

I was amazed how well 

he blended in with the pale, gray chippy paint on the steps. 

I thought, "How different from the blooms in the garden on the other side of the house.  Their colors shout to me to take notice, boasting their beauty, and seemingly 

very, very proud of themselves."

But here was this little guy.  

Small...unobtrusive...quietly and happily warming his tiny belly,

snoozing away the afternoon 

in the pale sunshine my front steps.

I wondered where he had come from.  From how far?  Had he made his new home in the mulch beneath the stairs? How did he know that his color matched the paint on the steps and that he would be safe there?

I sighed. How blessed I feel to be given the opportunity and the God-given awareness 

to catch moments like this in the world around me. 

I wish you blessings on this beautiful spring day - and I pray that you, too, will see something new outside your door today that you make you stop in wonder and gratitude....  :)

~ laurie

Square by Square

Good morning, fellow gardeners!

I've got to be brutally honest with you...

I've been just absolutely droooooling for three long winters over a big, white arbor that I found online. When I came across it, I just KNEW that I had to have it - one way or another. Somehow.  Someway.  Someday.

I could picture it standing proudly in the center of my garden, surrounded by my favorite peonies and crowned with huge, fragrant pink climbing roses and lush clematis. Just like the ones we all see in our gardening mags, ya know? Do you have arbor dreams, too?

I didn't know how I would accumulate the vast amount of cash that this big beauty was going to cost me - but I just knew I had to have one. 

Somehow.  Someway. Someday.

My brother called one day and asked if we would like the grapevines that had boldly claimed the cedar arbor in his backyard.  After an enthusiastic, "Sure!", we made out way to his house and started digging. And digging.  And digging.  The job that I had so casually said, "It'll only take a few minutes to get these babies up" took us over an hour.  As I stood next to that huge arbor (catching my breath, mind you), I asked what he planned on doing with the arbor. He made my day when he said, "You can have it."  (Love ya, bro!)

After another hour long job on the following Sunday (after spending a couple backbreaking days digging out sod to create a border garden and the perfect spot for the new arbor), my hubby and I hauled my new fav thing home on a trailer and set the three pieces up on some old sawhorses in the backyard.

White paint was what this treasure needed - of course!

So...day after day...for four days straight, four hours a day --- I painted.  And painted.  And painted.

Do you know how many little lattice squares one has to paint on a seven foot arbor?!  I counted one day as I moronically stabbed the frazzled paintbrush into the little corners and sides.  I think my mind has selectively forgotten, but it was something like...ahem....468.  That's one coat of primer and two coats of paint for two sides of the arbor.  It's a job that I would not want to do again.

But I'm not complaining!  Nope!  Not moi!

Because once hubby and I erected that beautiful thing in the exact spot where I had pictured it these past few years, I knew it was worth every single minute I spent dabbing and pushing paint into that latticework.  It was a thing of beauty!  My garden was one step closer to being completed.  (sigh!)

I am breathlessly awaiting my 'Zepherine Drouhin' climbing roses and my 'Hagley' clematis to creep their way up the sides and over the top creating a crown of fragrant pink. Incredibly, they are already sporting big buds. It will be beautiful, you know.  And I promise I'll share that day with you, my friends!

The moral of this story?  Don't give up visualizing what you see in your mind's eye, whether in your garden or your home.  You just never know where your next treasure will come from!  (*wink)

  Blessings on your day!

~ Laurie