Spending Time in My Garden

If there is another household pastime I that enjoy as much as cooking, it's got to be spending time in my garden. I've got a nice patio with a somewhat cultivated strip of flowers and herbs around it. We put out lots of hanging baskets and potted plants and there's a border that runs around the back yard, that I am slowly filling with flowering bushes and perennial plants.

Here's one end of my patio. We like to sit out in the evening and if it's chilly, we can light the chiminea. That makes it almost year round here in central VA! I enjoy making the baskets. No cushions out today, because there is a chance of a quick storm. We had a doozy yesterday! 

Asian Lilies (pink), Golden Cosmos, Brown Eyed Susan, Cleomes and Daisies

This is my flower bed that runs along the other side of the patio, near the dining table. Over the years, I've planted so many different things and dumped bags and bags of cow manure on and now it kind of takes care of itself. I didn't plant any seeds in it this year and so far I've gotten native "Brown-eyed" Susans (as opposed to the cultivated "Black eyed Susan" you see in nurseries), daisies, golden cosmos, cleomes or spider lilies, Asian Lilies, daffodills, pink hollyhocks, lavender and ageratum. The Brown Eyed Susans simply appeared on their own, delivered no doubt by an accommodating bird!  

Ageratum, with it's fuzzy purple flowers. 

When the lilies finish and the Brown Eyed Susan dies back, during the heat of July and August, the ageratum fills in next to the golden cosmos.

Double Day-Lilies

I absolutely love day-lilies, and I've got them all over my back and front yards These are double orange ones, which never fail to bloom and delight me. I've got some golden ones too.

Yellow Day-Lilies

What do you grow in your garden? I've got a few herbs as well, by my little fountain. The birds love the fountain and so do we! It's so soothing to listen to! 

Herbs by the fountain

In this picture you can see my thyme, to the left, and the poor garlic chives that the recent storm flattened (but they'll perk back up). I've also got basil, flat leaf parsley, and lavender, just out of the shot. The hollyhocks (tall and pink spires) and cosmos come up wherever they want, I can't -- and don't want to -- control them! 

And here's one of the very best reasons to make a flower garden, bouquets of flowers in the house! 

Late Summer Bouquet from 2013 -- I didn't plant zinnias this year.....hmmm...maybe I should...