Cielo's "Show Me Your Garden" party

Cielo at The House in The Roses

has invited me to join her "Show Me Your Garden" party today. Thanks Cielo, you are a great hostess and I just know there will be fabulous gardens to view. So let's grab our comfortable walking shoes, slap on some bug repellent - well I must - and don't forget a straw hat - it's hot out there today!

Welcome friends - I'd like you to join me for a quick tour around my North Carolina cottage garden? It's not large by any stretch of the imagination, but we have filled it with shrubs, plants and vegetables, garden structures and lots of whimsy beneath the lovely, lofty trees which have been there much longer than us!

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"What a man (or woman) needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it."

- Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in the Garden, 1871

Let's step through the arbor gate where the trumpet vine has bloomed profusely this Spring.


The vegetable patch is coming along despite lack of rain and produces quite well in the sunshine - tomatoes, cukes, French beans, zucchini and yellow squash - all the veggies needed for Summer cooking.

"Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration."

~ Lou Ericson

My purple shuttered potting shed ~ I love this little 'room of my own' which was built about eight years ago. I painted it green to blend in with Nature, adding purple shutters. The vine climbing up is a Five-leaf Akebia which displays tiny purple bell flowers in the early Spring.


The back lawn is small and curved which gives more dimension and little corners like a secret garden - and little people hang out waiting for their bird friends to stop by the many feeders hanging from the trees.


Those of you who have visited before are quite familiar with the deck and gazebo ~ some of you are probably tired of seeing it! I truly love this screened room which allows me to enjoy the outdoors free of mosquitoes. I love it in the morning when I can enjoy my coffee with the birds and squirrels ~ and in the early evening, sipping a glass of wine while watching birds bathe and grab those last few seeds before roosting for the night. Well, to be honest, I just love it at any time!

On this side there is a small raised bed with more tomatoes, cukes and beans, a few eggplants, peppers, squash, and pots of herbs, especially basil for pesto and Summer pasta dishes.

"The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses." ~ Hanna Rion

My kitchen window box is always filled with something fun throughout the year - Summer time means adding herbs and annuals along with ivy and always a brilliant chartreuse sweet potato vine.


As we return to the front of the cottage, if you have time, please sit a while on the porch while I make you a cup of English tea with something tasty to nibble! There are treasures to peek at including my sweet birds.






Well I know you have many other beautiful gardens to visit today so I'm blowing a friendly kiss as you go on your way. Please come back any time - you will always be welcome - we gardeners are a friendly bunch!

"God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done."


"One is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth"