Beginner Gardening: Thought you might like to see how we are getting on after 5y, 4 by Cville_Gardener

Cville_Gardener wrote:
Your lupines are beautiful. Yes, the peonies do very well here. However, I must replace them with a variety that is more resistant to Botrytis blight of the leaves. I am not one to spray very much because of the bees, butterflies and birds. But the woods behind us make it so that the leaf spot diseases can be prevalent in very humid weather. I love the woods but there is no way to rid them of every plant problem. :)

You have a good eye. That is a hardy banana tree (Musa basjoo). After the first hard frost it will die to the ground. It gets mulched over or I leave the dead leaves to cover it as its own mulch and it comes back bigger every year.

As to the cool weather there, I did about freeze to death part of the time we were in London and the surrounding countryside. Just kidding about the freezing. I got used to the cool, damp weather after a few days. We welcome some cooler weather during the summers here. We resided in California for many years and although it was sometimes hot, it was never humid. It was damp by the coast but not the type of humidity we have here.

Shot of the banana trees (a bit out of focus - sorry)
Some of the roses
Our State Wildflower - the Tennessee Coneflower (Echinacea tennesseensis)