It's still December: let's continue to celebrate our gardens

Looks English to me.
just a guess

It does look English - if it were mine, I would have more gardens..... looks bare.

Places like this are costly to maintain unless they are run by charities.
OR
Maybe all the perennial gardens are in the back

one can only hope the perennial gardens are in the back....

Just think about all the dusting .... oy....

open all the windows on windy days, no need to dust

Glad I wasn't listening to you when I lived in Phoenix!

with a full staff, we will not need to dust. We can spend our time with better things like gardens and garden parties....

I'm willing to plant all my extra Japanese irises and I'll even make Chocolate Mousse for the party.

I think a blower with a rechargeable battery is just the ticket. I think the pond is a mess. Would have to be skimmed and then drained, but then will have to be restocked. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DO NOT WHERE IT IS....

She can't know, I never said where, Calif. is always sunshine LOL :-)

That is actually in Powerscourt House & Gardens near Dublin, Ireland, dropped in for a visit this past summer.
http://www.powerscourt.ie/gardens/

My garden is a bit more on the cramped for space and cram it all in side.

How about a blower for dusting.

Very pretty garden, Sue, and a lovely photo as well.

We've been to Powerscourt in May when the walls of one building were covered in Wisteria.

Why are we concerned with dust?

hardly notice it

Sue, all that photo needs is a bunch of us and a hot pot of tea. Beautiful and very peaceful. See you Easterners, there is those western fences.

They create beautiful privacy.

Yeah, but they can make you feel like you live in a cube. Guess it all depends on your neighbors.

Wow, Sue, that's great!

I think our January project should be to get those gardens planned out. We can also work on the Garden Party menu, starting with Pirl's chocolate mousse. (I used to have a cartoon cut out and on my refridgerator with two little boys staring at a moose head mounted on the wall. One is saying to the other, "My Mom makes chocolate pudding out of them.")

After living in Kansas these many years I've learned the secret to dust is open windows on both sides of the house so it blows right on through.

Carolyn, your lilies really make me feel like a garden party! Hot tea, chocolate mousse, and then we can skim the scum. What a day! Even fences wouldn't make that place feel like much of a cube.

It is cold in Ireland and all they eat is potatoes and sausage.

We can import what we want to eat.

I've spent weeks in Ireland and had more wonderful salmon at Ashford Castle than we've had in Alaska. We only had sausages for one breakfast.

My late father-in-law, who never set foot outside of this country, always insisted that all the Irish ate was corned beef. We never saw it on any menu anywhere in Ireland.

the world has become a very small place and it is definitely a global economy.

I have always loved history and I wonder what it was like in the 1700's and the 1800's, when the world seemed so much bigger and it was really something back then to have things imported from Europe. There are a couple of seed catalogs I get from England. I have never had any problems ordering from them either....

Same here, Carolyn. A very long time ago I read a book about Abigail Adams and she had to order fabric from England at unbelievably high prices. To think that now we can get in a car and visit four fabric shops in an afternoon, come home with the fabric and make a curtain is amazing when we compare it to the past.

"TR", a book on Teddy Roosevelt, gives a great view of what New York City was like in the 1890's and early 1900's. It talks of great expanses of green fields - now a bit difficult to imagine after seeing Times Square last night!

That is just beautiful but I think I'd rather have my own Tropical Island. The first time we went to the Bahamas we picked up a local paper with an add for an island. Can't remember how big, think it was around a hundred acres, there was a large house, guest house, think there was a citrus farm on it, came with a couple of boats and had a harbor. We (Ric and I + another couple) spent the week talking about how we could sell our homes and buy it. Lets see Tate (a salesman) could line up corporate groups to have conferences, Jane would manage the barns goats, horses and chickens. Ric would run the kitchen (he's a great cook) and I would do the SCUBA operation. We divided out various other jobs to our kids. Jane's daughter in her early twenties and working at a bank would be the bookkeeper, My oldest daughter (social butterfly and pt bar tender) would handle the bar and party activities. The twins Jen & Josh would work with me in the SCUBA operation. They had both grown up on the local river and could handle a boat. (Ocean verses River doesn't really make a difference in our new dream life.) Our youngest pre-teen would grow up to be practically a native. What fun we had on that trip,
On all our trips to the Bahamas it was the best!
I have lived in the same house for more than thirty years, not 20 miles from where I was born. A 6 week trip we took 3 years ago was the longest time I was ever away from my parents in my life. I have found that although I like to travel, 6 weeks away from home is, too long. Holly

There was a great PBS special on John Adams.Abigail was probably the first femenist

I wonder if that was the same special HBO ran on John Adams a couple of years ago. I am so glued to that stuff....much to my poor husband's boredom, I am sure..

The Bahamas was great fun but we asked the maid about the weather in summer. No wonder bargains can be had! She said the humidity remains in the 90's with temperatures around 100. I'd melt!

Now we know where pirl gets the ideas for her scarecrows !

groaaaaan

I only wish I had the talent to dress my scarecrow so well. It was the preview of their Junkanoo Festival and the work involved with each costume was remarkable.

I have been watching this helebore for a month. This is as close to full bloom as is gotten.Maybe Feb.

This is my garden right now. I need flowers! I need spring!! I need a big greenhouse!
Can't start planting til May. Oh help me.

I'll keep checking, those blooms are in there I just know it.

Marti - to have such a wonderful blank canvas as you have!

I have covered most of mine and am running out of room. I have even put in a couple of New Dawn climbing roses to grow up the side of my house in the last year or so, using my house a trellis....

Incredible costumes Pirl. I can't help but think how much fun my granddaughters would have with something like that. Dress-ups heaven! I love the islands, but I'll take the mountains first any day. That was my first home and is truely where my heart got left behind.

Marti, do you have anywhere inside you can hang a single shop light? My growing areas are the only thing that get me through some of our Kansas winters. It's like having a small jungle on hand. I can go play in the snow (except this year I'm not so good in it) then come in and play in the tropics. Great SAD prevention!

ge, keep us posted on your helebore. It should help us all feel a bit springier.

What beautiful coverage though Carolyn. Everything looks so well managed and I'm sure that keeps you busy.

willowwind, I never thought about that. We live in a single wide mobile and right now I've got half the bathroom sink covered with small pots of cuttings and seeds. I just have to have something growing to be happy. I am to used to year round gardening in Calif. Heck, the nursery here is bare except for trees. No flowers. No roses. No nothing. In Calif, I could go to the nursery anytime of the year and find flowers to buy. I miss that.

Yes, I have a great blank canvas to start with. The picture shows the front yard and down the side yard behind the trailer. The property is about 192 feet deep and 75 feet wide. Plus my sister owns the lot next door. About the same size. In front of the trailer which faces west is where I will put the shade garden. The trailer shades the garden in the morning and afternoon and evening it's shaded by three maple trees. The rest of the yard is full sun to partial sun. AND I want everything, every flower to plant in the yard plus my veggie garden.

Oh, no, Carolyn. You don't get off that easy. If there's lawn, there's room for gardens.

I agree Marti, even a windowsill. Start a package of columbines. Or something.

I have 6 rose cuttings rooting plus 2 iris received in trade and had started to grow, so I put them in pots. Oh, and I think I found some wild columbines. I carefully took three and haave them growing in a pot to see what color they are.

Polly -

I am not opposed to that, unfortunately, DH feels we need to have some lawn. I would not mind just having paths running in and out of my plants.

I too need something to grow during the winter months. I have some foxglove I am going to start and I do have my houseplants. I moved some of my orchids into a lighted greenhouse in the spare bedroom and I am trying to carry over some of the less zone hardy pond plants in my little greenhouse as well...