Heres my backyard terraces garden. It has daylilies mostly but terraces #3 is a long planting of lily bulbs. I planted these last year.
Lots of Lilies here in my garden, no blooms yet (pics)
Getting closer to the lilies.
And here they are all along the back of the 3 section. You can see the nasturtiums that I planted to cascade down the wall. I did that last summer and it looked great.
Here in front of a row of serviceberry shrubs I have done a garden this spring of daylilies and lilies. You can see most of the lilies sprounting up. The front row were the stringline stands is going to be a row of daylilies which are here but I have not gotten them planted yet.
Opps, thats the earlier picture after I just planted them . This should be the one showing them sprouted today.
This is to give you an idea how Cottage Garden it is here and how heavily mulched the woodsey area in the front yards is. This area has roses, daylilies, lily bulbs and now Siberian Iris. There are shrubs off to both sides and my Blackberries are along in back of those roses in the picture.
Another angle. Almost all of my garden beds look like this forest floor. The roses love it and the lily bulbs have no problem pushing thru the very thick carpet of leaves. I planted many of the new fancy lily bulbs gotten this spring in this general area.
It might be hard to believe but in 2001 all this was grass and lawn.
Some places there is no room for lilies. My azealas at the shrub border are starting to bloom.
Todays view from the backyard patio.
Heres a section on the other side of my yard near my stocktank pond. Street is in back of those shrubs.
My stocktank pond this spring. Putting it inground was last Falls project. Turned out to be quite a project too.
I wanted to add that anything that looks remotely like a woodsey area did not just happen to be there. All this was created from nothing but common lawn. I started my garden redo in the summer of 2001 but started planting shrubs in spring of 2003. That entire hill off my patio is all my planting. So is the sideyard woods off the rose garden, my neightbors diveway is on the other side of those shrubs (no fence). And the front yard woodsey part near the pond, you guessed it, I planted all that too. Took years.
Wow, really nice!! More pictures please! And tell me about your "stock tank" pond? Is it what I think it is? A real stock tank?
How much land do you have? I'm really liking your leaf mulch. :)
I cannon wait till this all blooms. Your gardens should be professionally photographed!
Beautiful gardens. Sounds like a lot of work but you sure did a nice job!
Yes, it is one of those black polly stocktanks made for watering horses and cattle. I got it last spring and set it up in my sideyard aboveground as a water garden. I knew I wanted to put it inground but wanted time to decide just how and exactly were it should be. The inground project was late last fall. I wanted it to look like a natural rock grotto in the woods and I think it came pretty close and turned out well. Its 300 gallons.
There is the manufacturer's info-
http://www.freelandind.com/fipolytanks.htm
I have a normal sized suburban lot. I like it here though because I have a 16 acre park accross the street.
Your pond is a real winner. I'm just marveling at how fully spring bordering summer it is where you are. We're still waiting for warm weather here.
It really has not been warm this spring but lots of rain. Still the gardens have loved the rain and everything is so green this time of year.
rita, your garden is so lovely! Neat and weed free! I'm jealous. Tell me, do you eat the serviceberries? Are they tasty? I'm gaining an interest in edible landscaping. Even asked for a separate forum but got shot down.
winterrobin,
We have tons of serviceberries growing wild here, and we do sample them, but they are slightly bitter, and have large seeds in them. They do have new cultivars that are supposed to be larger berries, so smaller seeds and taste better.
One year my daughter made jam out of serviceberries and black raspberries and it was scumptious.
Serviceberries around here are hardly bitter. No seeds and the fruit is quite large, similiar to a blueberry. I don't quite know how to describe the tast. I would say blander than a blueberry. I prefer Blueberries but my neighbors son comes over every year when they are ripe and loves them. He said he doesn't like the blueberries. They look much like a blueberry when ripe but start out red, then get blue as they ripen. Unless you have a lot of them, the birds will eat them all up for you before they get ripe as they absolutely adore serviceberries. My serviceberry shrubs have an endless supply of berry eating backyard songbirds like Orioles, Cardinals, Robins, Catbirds. Mockingbirds and whatnot all day long. But they produce fruit so heavily now that the birds and I both get plenty.
Serviceberries come in trees or shrubs as well as the wild forms. I suggest shrub form REGENT only grows about 6 feet tall and produces heavily with large fruit.
Thanks, polly and rita. I will check Regent. I don't mind sharing with the birds.
Great gardens, Rita! You've got so many lilies, that there isn't any room for the baby stem bulblets to grow and multiply! Well, you'll have plenty to trade . . . Nice choice of rock around the pond, too.
The wild serviceberries here in MN are fairly bland, and have arelatively tough skin, compared to cultivars sold and more easterly natives. Regent is an excellent choice. If you want a small tree, I don't think Autumn Brilliance can be beat. When the Cedar waxwings come and feast on my tree, I swear I see them get fatter.
I really did not count on the little bulblets. This spring I had lots of them and just weeded them out. I wanted a massive series of bloom there from those lilies so packed them in close. I don't care really, as long as it looks good.
don't care really, as long as it looks good.
you can count on that!
Heres todays picture of that terrace with all those lily bulbs. They have grown alot in the past week.
Here is this springs garden of lily bulbs and daylilies that there are pictures of above also.
sideview of the same garden
This is a view of my sideyard and a new garden with some cosmos and impatients. Gonna have marigolds in the front section not yet planted. You can see the pond.
The plan is to have lilies and beardless iris in there but for this year, I am happy top just get the garden bed in and put annuals there.
Wow, just beautiful gardens. If they look this good now, I can only imagine how pretty they will be in full bloom!
This is a picture taken today of those terraces in my backyard which the third one has all those lily bulbs.
Sideyard shrub border with viburnums in full bloom.
This is a new raised garden section I call the planterbox. I planted it this spring with daylilies and put lilies in between the daylilies. The green way in the back is a section of roses that are not yet in bloom.
I have lilies planted all around in my roses too and I especially love it when the lilies and roses are both in bloom.
This is a picture of the azealea section while it was in flull bloom. Its done now.
Oh your gardens are wonderful. More pictures, please. ;)
A perfect Black Magic Rose
The pond and new garden I just did in front of the rock wall.
Pond. Excuse the charcoal pavers. They were what I used as edging on that new garden section and I am not quite finished as I have not done the edge on far end or fixed it around that fern I just planted.
Heres that new garden section in front of the rockwall. All I could manage this year was to get the actuall garden bed in. I just planted annuals because I could not manage any more. Its planned to be lilies and beardless iris like Siberian Iris but it will wait until next spring before I do that.
Your azaleas look great Rita - love the contrasting colors - I have several myself.
That rose is remarkable! It deserves a close-up shot.