How Does My Garden Grow?

I need to call it Butch's garden these days. Aside from picking out the plants and deciding how they are to be put in the pots, he does all the planting.

This is one of my favorite planters. I bought the base a couple of years ago at a fair in St. Louis with my sister, Jeanne. I gave it to Butch for Christmas.

You do have to water it every day, but that's nothing new. Everything in pots has to be watered every day.

This is called a jackmanii clematis. I love the purple.

I especially love it when it trails up through the ivy and peeks out above.

We used to put these planters around the pool, but it was too much trouble watering them. Now, most of them are around the porch.

I love the ostrich ferns as they are disease resistant and drought tolerant. Plus they are the only ferns that can take full sun. They are prolific too. Each plant produces at least 10 babies every year. I give them away in the spring. They need to be thinned out. The crepe myrtles on each side usually start blooming in July.

I don't think there's any flower more rewarding than Annabelle hydrangeas. They are glorious. They make wonderful cut flowers that dry nicely.

Even when they are past their prime, they fade to the green flower heads and dry on the busy. It's satisfying to have the green flowerheads all summer.

Shasta daisies are always cheerful.

I gave away some of the lavender. Actually, I'm thinking of getting rid of it altogether. It's too large and "sprawly" for my taste. I made that word up, but I think you know what I mean.

The straw flower looks good close up.

From a distance, it looks a little forlorn. There are quite a few blooms so maybe it will look better when they flower out.

The magnolias are the queens of my yard. I have them on 3 corners surrounding the pool.

They are probably 50 feet tall. Someone asked me once if I could handle the mess. Without a doubt! They may drop leaves, but I love them.

I used to have the foster hollies that guard the entrance to the pool---topiaried every year. I started out doing them myself. Then I had garden people do it. Finally, my arborist had to handle it. That's not something they normally do, but since I make friends with every person that works here, Aaron made an exception. Now, they are just too big for anyone to manage. I remember when we first moved here, the foliage when all the way to the ground. I "went out on a limb" and just started hacking away. I made the right decision! In fact, I think I'm going to limb them up some more.

We have tomatoes. They usually ripen around the 4th of July. Of course, we have to fight the birds and the squirrels for them.

I don't think we'll get many this year. The foliage looks like crap.

This isn't my garden, but last week, on my way to bridge, I saw this tiny---barely born little fawn. It hobbled across the road on wobbly legs as its mother waited on the other side.

You can see how tiny it is compared to this sign which is about 6"x10". It's the smallest fawn I've ever seen. There was a car in front of me who stopped first.

She just wouldn't go. I could see that the mother was getting nervous and the baby was so scared. I pulled around her and said that we needed to leave so the baby could join it's mama. I don't know if she listened to me. Few people do! I can be bossy like that.

How does your garden grow?