Home Sweet Home

I went home last week... home home, like to my parents house where I grew up. This gorgeous bouquet of garden roses told me it must be summer.

I learned my love of all things green from my mom. She is an avid gardener and spends many hours a day out in her yard working and enjoying the fruit of her labors. I am excited to share it all through pictures, even though they don't do it justice!


I love my mom's roses. She planted them when we first moved into the house 20 years ago. This year they haven't been very healthy, so I helped her cut out a bunch of old dead wood, hoping that will invigorate the newer canes.

I should ask her all the varieties again, but I know she has Abe Lincoln (the red), Queen Elizabeth (small pink), and peace roses (yellow and pink).

This is one of my favorites because it smells lemony.

Some other fabulous flowers she grows every year are as follows:

Calendula

Poppies

Sweet pea

Nasturtium

Ranunculus

Hollyhock

And here is the garden. How 'bout a little tour?

On the right of the picture you'll see the raspberry patch. They are so yummy in August!

Onions

Lettuce (we had many salads with this while visiting)

She is also growing tomatoes, peppers, beets, carrots, beans, cabbage, cucumbers, squash, and peas.

A few more shots of the yard might give you a feel for the place. This it what greets you at the front door...

I love this bed in the back yard. Depending on the season it is full of iris, larkspur, and peonies.

This picture shows an area where Mom has worked really hard. When we moved into the house, she had the tree (center) cut down and turned the stump into a table. She went up to the hills in Oakley and collected the stone for the patio and laid it herself. On the right is the water fall and pond she built herself (don't mind Maddie's balloon stuck in the falls).

I love how the little statues and birdhouses add interest.

Here's another view from the upper patio... I always loved this little path under the trees.

My parents had this cement patio poured and stamped when they put in the hot tub and remodeled the master bedroom. I think it looks like it came out of Better Homes and Gardens!

Mom is really good at designing pots. I love the blue lobelia and the cascading green creeping jenny. She hand waters about 20 pots every day.

All of the pictures up to now have been the back yard! The front yard it pretty too, but needed a little TLC. Mom and I tackled this bed of columbine.

Columbine is a beautiful flower, but it seeds itself aggressively and completely took over this bed. It was almost done blooming, and Mom wanted some room for more annual color, so we removed about 2 feet in front and uncovered a rock path long ago buried!

I couldn't believe the taproots on these babies!

The after shot.

There's that pathway.

We filled the whole garbage can with columbine and some sweet woodruff (groundcover) and there was still a ton left in the bed!

I definitely scratched at my 'garden bug' working in and enjoying Mom's yard... but it left me wondering if I will ever have something like that of my very own? Then again, maybe it's like the way a grandma feels when her grandchildren leave... wonderful to see them and love them, but a relief to not have the daily work. :)