Garden Tours, part 1

Sorry I've been away - there was this little wedding in my backyard that preoccupied my time.
But that's not as much of an excuse as I would like, so I'm playing some catch up here.

Back in the beginning of June our church held a garden tour. It was so much fun seeing the gardens of fellow church members. Unexpectedly it was in the 90's that day. We trudged on though and saw a variety of gardens. While they were all beautiful in their own way, these are a few shots that show the variety we experienced.

We started at a small flower garden in a home in a senior village. It was compact and very lovely.

A Church Bird house perched on a stump. How cute!

I love hidden seating areas

This lovely yard was also in a senior village. I was so surprised what people can do with a small lot.

At one house we watched the owner feeding blue birds! He would put meal worms into a feeding dish, knock on the dish and walk away and a pair of blue birds would come and eat them. Do you see one in the dish?

This couple had a small vegetable garden in a fenced in area at the bottom of a hill in his yard. He was also in a senior village. His flowers were doing great in spite of backing up to woods and a lake. His secret? Liquid fence!

Yes, that is the view in his back yard. Who knew those senior villages had such diversity?

We also got to visit the community gardens where seniors who don't have the yard space can rent an allotment and plant a garden. There was a lot of variety here, but it was getting pretty hot at this point.

This Koi pond was so relaxing, but the sun was relentless. Luckily, most of the rest of this garden was in the shade. You can see that under the umbrella was a popular place to stand!

My house was next, but I didn't take any photos of that. You've all seen it. Then we went to a garden where flowers mingled with "junk" - it was very entertaining!

We ended the tour at a lovely house near the ocean that had a wonderful garden.

We toured and had a fabulous lunch - I love this conservatory. Isn't it perfect?

The Koi Pond was so impressive. I love to sit by them, but I would never want to have to maintain one! But it was so relaxing to have my lunch under the shade of a tree and hear the waterfall.

This is an espaliered apple tree. I saw these at Longwood gardens years ago and they have always intrigued me. This may be on my future list, although it just seems like it would be making it easier for the deer to eat the fruit!

It was a lovely day, with lovely people and a lot of inspiration, but the garden tours weren't over for that week! Next up, a rainy day garden tour!