Welcome to My Garden Tour

Welcome to a tour of my previous garden that I tended for 12 years. It seems I am getting a little impatient for this garden to grow in my new house. So I am taking a stroll down memory lane to my old garden. We are going to start the tour looking from the inside out. I read somewhere once, not only design your garden from a street perspective, but to also keep in mind what your garden will look like from the inside of the home out. A light bulb went on that day, and I began to plant my gardens with the inside view in mind as well as the outside. Just think of your windows as a picture window that can frame and capture a beautiful scene for you. “A Room with a View"

So this is looking out my front door window, to the street. I had a lovely spring garden planted in this bed, with also great attention to scent. I loved walking out the front door to sit on the porch and smell the Rock Daphne, and the roses when in bloom.
Now here is the street view of the front of my house. I was going for an old cottage garden theme here.

I had two climbing roses growing on my front porch, this one on the right is Renee', a thorn less ever blooming rose that I purchased at Ralph Moore, Sequoia Gardens Nursery in CA. This man is known as the father of mini roses. He had a lot more going on there in his nursery than mini's though. I was very privileged to meet this man one day at his nursery. He sent me home with two free mini tree roses to test in my garden. My favorite miniature of his was Lavender Crystal. It was such a great shade of lavender, larger blooms, and a lovely scent. I managed to bring a cutting into this new garden.

So once upon a time, I hosted a garden tour in my yard. It was the last summer we were to live here, and I thought, why not. All this work I have poured into this yard, let the public enjoy it, and raise some money for charity.
So now we can see the othe rose on my front porch. Cl. New Dawn I am not growing one of these in my new place, but it was a good bloomer. I did take a cutting of Renee' and she rules my front court yard.
Heading out to the backyard north side.
Now we are at the gate to my backyard and about to enter the north side garden. I have already posted about this lovely spot, so I will refer you back to that post. It is worth the peek, if you haven't already seen it. We had a porch on this side of the house too, and spend many an evening viewing the gardens and the sunsets from this lovely vantage point.
Some lovely ladies. Actually these are students from a Intern Bible class I teach.
I grew over 100 roses in this garden, but here is a spot I grew a few single only roses.

So here is peek over the fence, so you might just go take a real look. You will see plenty more pictures of this arbor. For those that want to know, I have two Cl. roses planted on here. This side (north) is Constance Spry; I believe it is David Austin’s first English rose. On the south side I grew Zepherine Droughin. I have cuttings started of both these roses in my new gardens. I wouldn't be with out either one.
Now here is the north side garden being viewed from my second story master bathroom. It was in fact from this window, that my overall design took root. I loved looking out that window every morning.

Here is the winter view. It still holds interest because of what they call "good bones" Which means the garden had a good structure, not just the fluff of flowers.

And here it is again in the fall.

And here is a ground level view of my glorious rose arbor from the north side porch.
So we are still on the north side, but I didn't show you my potager garden last time. Here I grew grapes, herbs, raspberries, vegetables and a few fury friends.


I often felt like Mrs. McGregor, trying to keep the rabbits out of my lettuce

But they were not too deterred, here are some new spring bunnies, making a home in my compost bin.

Now we are turning around to face south to see the backyard of my garden. Right behind the house we had a pool. On the other side I had another garden which we will call the south side garden.
This is looking at the back of the house.We had a rather unsightly chain link fence around the pool for saftey. So I grew everything green I could think of on it. Including some of Mr. Moore's Cl. Miniture Roses.
This was dubbed the courting swing. Many a nights my daughter and her future husband held hands on this swing while they were falling in love.....ooooooooohhh :]

As you can see in the background here is the southside garden with a cute little garden shed as its focal point.

This is looking north from the south side garden...are ya with me? We used this area of the garden for the dog, the clothesline, and to have barbeques.

There was definitely a more cottagy look to this side of the garden.
Here you can glimpse the third porch on my house, coming off the kitchen.

So when we are looking at the garden shed, looking west now, and turn to the left (south) we see our clothesline/arbor/bench. I loved this little spot. In between the arbors 2x6's ran cloths line. This was a small replica of the same clothesline arbor my mother had in our first home. I so remember playing in that spot with the sun, and the scent of roses mingled with fresh line dried laundry.

This is a small rose garden on the other side of the arbor.

Now we are heading out the south side arbor. For some reason, this arbor never quite bloomed and flourished as the north side arbor did. Probably tree roots, too much heat, and poor choice of cl. roses here.

So out to the front yard, at the end of my garden tour were a few ladies set up doing some plein air painting. This lady was painting my mailbox garden. It was a very fun day. We ended up selling our home that week by owner as a result of this garden tour.

I hope you all enjoyed it, I know I loved my trip down memory lane.

Now I need to get focused here and will this new little baby garden into growing....!!!!!!!!!!!