Wow, what a beautiful yard Carol...All your plants look so nice and colorful :o)

Thanks for sharing your pictures!!!

Hi Carol: How lovely. The curves and neatly manicured beds really enhance your garden.

The YTT is a beauty. I like the way you've pruned it into a casual form rather than into a ball. The underplanting of pink polka dot with amaryllis is also a very pleasing combo.

I also have the battiscombei. Wonderful plant, isn't it?

Lastly I'll mention the red bromeliads- so attractive nestled under the trees with the red begonias.

Thanks for posting. We love pictures!

June

Hi Carol

What a pretty and orderly yard you have! it shows all the care that you put in it, beautiful blooms!

Silvia

Carol, just beautiful, everything looks so healthy and well designed and organized. The Amaryllis is to die for and begonia bloom cheers everything up.Love it!

I can't stop looking at these pictures!

I hope you don't mind me stealing some of your plant combos . . . your shady areas look so inviting and natural.

Thanks for the inspiration, Carol. You've done a beautiful job.

~Susie

Wow Carol! Spectacular....

Tom

Gorgeous! I love seeing the long shots of how the individual plants sit in the landscape. You've made it very beautiful. That rain lily is so perfectly symmetrical, and with 8 petals, how cool!

Wow, Carol! It is so nice to see landscape shots as well as individual plants. Your yard is fabulous. Love seeing all the begonias, of course!
After reading your posts all this time, it's wonderful to see how all your hard work and research has produced such beauty.
thanks for posting and keep it up!
Hester

V\ery nice! I love the poka dot plant with the amaryllis, such a pretty combo.

What gorgeous gardens Carol! I'm amazed at all the color so early in the year. Do you have to protect the YTT in hard freezes? Thanks, Rhonda

Very nice! Love to see other peoples creations. Knew you had to have a beautiful garden from all the information you have shared on gardening. Thanks.....keep posting pics, it's only May!!

Beautiful gardens, how do you keep the grass so green? Do you use chemicals? Thx

Your yard is beautiful!

Your house is adorable!! Gardens are beautiful.

Jane

Just gorgeous. What is the large bush with the blue/ white flowers. It's lovely.

I love your pink amaryllis. I'm still sad that the seeds from last year failed to sprout. Your rain lily seeds that did sprout are alive and doing well. I had 11 germinate and all made it through the winter. I'm giving them another season in the pots before planting.

Thank you so much for the "tour" !

Hi
I can see you have a plan!! lol looks very nice!!
Some types of Amaryllis give me fits If we have a cool winter they do well but if warm they skip flowering and just regrow . Looks like I'll get one stalk out of all of mine!!
Thanks for showing us the pix . Nice to see landscape rather than flower pix gary

Very pretty yard. I like your Maurelii (?) banana. How old is it and did you leave it out all winter?
I used to grow huge ones in Louisiana and AZ but did not bring them when I moved here.
I just got a few new baby Maurellis in Feb and they are about a foot and a half tall now. I am thinking of putting them in the ground for the summer/fall and digging them up for winter so I won't lose too much top growth. I leave most of my other bananas out in the winter. This past few winters they didn't even die to the ground but sometimes they do.
~SJN

Very pretty! I've been inspired to keep working in my own gardens. Everything there looks so healthy and lush.

Happy Gardening ~ FlowerLady

Puglvr, Silvia, June, Susie, Mocropot, Tom, Sunworhipper, Hester, Keiki, Rhonda, Walli, Journey, Jane, Cocoa, Gary, SJN, Lorraine, thanks for the garden love! I’m getting braver with sharing my photos. Ya know, you gardeners set the bar pretty high. :)

Sylvia, I can’t help the orderly bit. I think it comes from my years as an accountant. And I have a mother who organizes everything, even labels the shelves in the refrigerator. So I can’t help myself sometimes.

June, you are right about the battiscombei. I started it last year from cuttings and then planted in them in the ground. This year, it really took off! I guess “year 2” for this plant is the year. It loves full, all-day sun, which is amazing. It blooms right through 90+ heat and sun. Great plant.

Susie, you are welcome to steal combos and anything else. I don’t think that combos or design are my strengths but I am good at copying, too. 

Sunworshipper, the rain lilies came from a seed swap with Tom, Tina and Keiki! I have them all over the yard and use them as borders. They form a nice clump and love full sun so they are easy-peasy.

Hester, I have copied lots from you. I always drool over all of your photos for hours at a time.

Rhonda, I do not protect the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow from freezes. I posted a long post about it this morning. Please see the link below.

SJN, I have three Red Abyssinian ‘Maurelii” bananas. I do not protect any of them on most nights but I did wrap blankets and towels around the bases (yes the BASES) on the coldest nights. (As I’m sure you know, but for the benefit of any newbies, it is more important to protect the roots and heart of any plant than the leaves in order for it to survive.) They are all in the ground and have been for about two-three seasons, so yes, they are out all winter. In late March, when I think (hope) we are done with freezes, I cut off all the mushy, dead leaves. The center trunks have always felt firm. None of them have died back to the ground. I will post a few more pictures of them today. I would love to see your new babies! (And we still need to plan to get together one of these days!…)

I’m fully committed to shade gardening. I know that it eventually means I will have to take out some plants but there are so many great plants that grow in dappled light or shade.

For those that commented on the amaryllis and pink polka dot combo, all of those pink polka dot plants came from volunteers all over the year. That plant (pink polka dot, hypoestes) is one of the staples of my yard. They are reliable, come back every year, require no protection in winter and reseed freely. They transplant soooo easily in March and early April. I just finished moving about 40-50 of them to the front yard oak circle bed. They will provide color when the caladium are finished. I can’t recommend pink polka dot (or white or red) highly enough. They are such a winner.

By the way, that whole side bed is full of caladium. About the time the amaryllis stop blooming, the caladium come up. Here are a few photos from last year when the caladium were just coming up and the pink polkadot were newly transplanted (you can barely see them):

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JCTsai, yes, I do use some chemicals but not often. My favorite fertilizer is Milorganite and lately, what I call “fake Milorganite”. It is Green Edge. It has approximately the same P-K-N ratio as Milorganite (6-1-1) but a 40 lb bag costs the same $11.99 as Milorganite’s 30 lb bag. I broadcast it every other month from March to September. Here is a link: http://www.green-edge.com/

Thanks again, everyone, for all of the encouragement. I remember a few years ago standing in the middle of my back yard, after having taken out large sections of grass, thinking, “What I have I done?!?”

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Brunfelsia (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow)

This post was edited by love_the_yard on Sat, May 10, 14 at 10:36