I just love coneflowers, we have them all over our yard.
We have a small yard and just about all of the space has something growing.
Along the back path
I dug all of the grass out of our backyard and put in paths, flowers, vegetable beds and planted fruit trees.
I think Daisies are so elegant.
This is called a Twelve Apostles or a walking iris. A neighbor shared a few plants with me and those plants have made many other plants.
The wrens are constantly building nests all over our yard. One year they built a nest just above the window airconditioner to my husbands small work shop and he could not use the airconditioner until the baby's left the nest. This was a hanging pot that was up on a porch.
This is a container of carnations that I planted years ago and each spring it brings up new flowers.
Here is a close up of one of the carnations. They smell so wonderful.
The Doves love to hang out on top of the bamboo arbors.
The progression of the coneflower, forming petals
A little more filled out
The amazing coneflower
The coneflowers stay in bloom longer than many of the other flowers.
This is a sage bloom, a stunning herb in bloom
Another picture of the sage
This is a basket of cilantro. I plant the seed at different times so I have cilantro growing just about any time of the year. In the winter when it freezes I bring it in to the seed house.
Sometimes the butterflies seem to follow me around the garden.
A tasty treat for the butterfly.
The Daisy's seem to glow just before sunset.
The Blackeyed Susan
This is another favorite in our garden
The best part about the Blackeyed susans, they make a lot of blooms and come back next year.
We grow lettuce just about any place we can find. A hanging pot is good for mixed lettuce.
My suggestion is to plant the lettuce in progressing such as ten days apart. This lettuce can be cut and then it will grow back a few more rounds.
This lettuce is grown around a keyhole garden. Carrots are grown in the center.
Tomatoes early morning.
Give tomatoes plenty of space and support to grow tall. There are determinate tomatoes and Indeterminate Tomatoes. I like to grow Indeterminate tomatoes because they have a long growing season and keep making tomatoes until a heavy frost. Determinate tomatoes are more of a bush and Indeterminate are more of a vine. Determinate tomato plants seem to make their tomatoes at the same time and then the plant dies. We enjoy growing tomatoes all summer and into the fall so Indeterminate for me. Check the tag on the plant and it should tell you which it is or check the seed package. Remember that if you plant your tomato by seed it takes a long time to get it growing and ready to set it outside. You need to plant your tomato seed very early.
These tomatoes are indeterminate and we made a bamboo support with ropes. By the end of summer we had added more bamboo and they were over eight feet tall and falling over. We had tomatoes all summer and they lasted until November. There was a lot of shade in this area and that did not seem to stunt them at all. This picture was taken early summer.
We have tried gardening just about every method we can think of. This photo is a straw bed that we made with metal posts, chicken wire, hay and soil filled in the middle. we planted okra in this bed. The okra grew well and we harvested a lot from this bed but the problem with this was it seemed to dry out very easily. we had to water more often than if it were in the ground or in pots. But, it did grow okra.
This is Skittles. She was our garden guard cat. She would keep out anything that wanted to eat our plants. Skittles just showed up one day under our carport. She was so thin and sick that we did not think she would live. We had no idea how old she was and it took several months to get her to trust us. We kept feeding her and little by little she would get closer to us until one day she fell into my arms. We took her to the vet and got her medication, shots and then took her back and had her spayed. She was a wonderful cat and never left our yard. She did not want to live inside the house so she lived outside and we made her a heated house on our back porch for the winters. She lived at our house about five years. One morning she was on the back porch as she usually was at that time of day and I patted her for a few minutes and walked inside. Only about thirty minutes later I walked out and she had passed away. We are not sure why she died but it was sudden as if she had a heart attack. We miss Skittles terribly and since she has been gone we have had problems with something eating our young vegetable plants during the night. We know she had taken on a big job and decided to become our garden guard cat. Skittles is buried in our pet cemetery along with our 17 year old Beagle Maggie, our Sixteen year old poodle mix Sally and our cute Lionhead Bunny Carley. They were all wonderful Pets and they brought us much Joy. Until we meet again.........
