Panoramas

The little bed on the far right

View of that bed from the path along the back fence, including that new bed I made this year with the hypertufa blocks.

Great garden with stone walks.
Thanks everyone who goes to the trouble of taking longshot pics.

Noreaster, your gardens are lovely. Where do you get those wonderful planters? The one the JM is in, for example...

Victor--yes, I was a Geology major in college, still love rocks and minerals.

The natural stone in my walk is phyllite, a schist-like rock that occurs locally. They were from the basement walls of some old houses that were demolished. It has a pleasing sheen, but I fear is not going to be very durable. But, I'm pretty old, so it will probably last long enough!

Noreaster, is that water in the pic of the left side on the other side of the chain link fence?

The snail looks so cute near the hostas!

What lovely gardens granite and noreaster. I love how you both used rocks in your gardens. Very pretty and I like seeing long shots of the gardens too. Almost as good as walking around in person and nosing about from plant to plant and from one bed to another. Thanks for posting yours.

Very nice, nor! Shade gardens always look so peaceful and natural to me.

Cool, gneiss. Did you work in the field? I've always been interested in geology. This is a great area for it. Went on quite a few trips with the Museum of Nat His in NYC. Most of NYC is schist and gneiss, with some (Inwood) marble thrown in - mainly in Manhattan.

Thanks, guys!

flowerjen, no, not water- that's the reflection off the backyard neighbor's house.

Granitegneiss, those planters are all hypertufa containers that I've made over the years. I don't have a ton of room to plant things in the ground, so I use a lot of containers, and I like how they blend with the natural rocks we have.

Here is a pic of that group. The pot on the far left in not one I made. The maple is actually in a nursery pot within the bigger hypertufa pot. At the end of the season, I will take that out and bury it next to the house for the winter. Although it might be getting too big for that and I may have to come up with another winter home for it. But for the last two years, that has worked great.

Robin, I love that snail! I found it last year at a nursery, and knew it had to come home with me, since I'm obsessed with snails and slugs.

Victor, are you in the West Point area of NY? My brother is reporting for duty at West Point in a few more weeks. He's joining the staff as a Geology professor, in fact. At least I assume that's what they hired him for- the army sent him to get his masters in Geology out in Oregon, which is where he's been for the last two years. I will be glad to have him and his wife and kids living closer to me. It's hard to believe my little brother that barely made it thru high school would go on to become a professor at West Point Academy! I'm sure he'll be glad to know that the area is geologically interesting.

Yes I am. Congrats to little brother! Cool!

That is very cool...geology was a tough course for me.

Today I finally mulched around the shrub garden that I started in 2005, so here is an overall shot of that.

I'm amazed that West Point would be teaching geology--good for them! Very few schools offer it anymore. I took it my freshman year in college to get the science requirement over with, and loved it. But I never held a job in the field, it has remained just a hobby for me.

Lots of exposed bedrock and glacial erratics near me.

Nice cleaning job