Category: Our First House

Oops, we teased you again by sharing our gardens from the past.  Before we share our garden, we have to thank our fantastic guests for sharing their gardens.  We hope you enjoyed peeking in the gardens of Ashley at Design Build Love, Cait at Hernando House, Jen and IHeart Organizing, and Kim at Yellow Brick Home while we were on an in-state mini vacation.  We’ll share more details this week.

When we were away, we forgot to thank Jen for continuing to sponsor this blog of ours!  Jen has a fantastic Etsy shop with goodies to make your home and life more organized.  And, her blog is chock full of brilliant ideas to make the most of your space, large or small.  I’m completely in love and awe with her boys’ newly refinished room.

So many smart, space-saving, usable ideas in one small space.

Now, on to the main event.  Our garden, as it stands in 2011.  Our front rose bed, not to be confused with Bed of Roses by Bon Jovi, the best hair band of all time, has had a slow start thanks to abnormally low temps.  Finally though, we’re getting blooms.  I mentioned that a few of the bushes died over the winter, and the small center rose-bush has gotten a few leaves, but no growth.  Boo.

However, the boxwood have grown like weeds filled in.  Now, if they could get taller, too, I’d be thrilled.  Actually, I probably wouldn’t notice until I looked back at pictures.  That’s how I realized they grew since 2007.  Growth is tricky like that, so slow until it hits you in the face.  Sometimes, I think the same thing about my kids; they don’t seem bigger until I look back to see how small they were.

The shady north side is kicking butt, too.  The lily of the valley is going strong as are the bleeding hearts we planted two years ago.

Apparently, before I met Ben, the north side was filled with hostas.  He didn’t like the hostas, so he gave them to our neighbor.  Well, two years ago, hostas popped up for the first time.  I guess he didn’t get all of the roots and they were able to grow.  Now we have hostas, and I’m a happy camper.

Our fence is another story.  Last summer, we used an opaque wood stain to finish our wooden fence.  We didn’t get this small section of fence because we needed to build a gate.  As you can see, we still haven’t done that, either.  In fact, that’s part of an old closet door.  Redneck much?

But, the peonies on the left are my proudest gardening area.  In addition to lily of the valley, I also received a few peony plants from my great grand mother’s garden.  Last year was the first time we had blooms, five total.  This year, we had nine flowers in white and pink.

I almost prefer the white because the petals are more full.

But, the pink add a splash of color.

But, I’m totally jealous of our neighbor’s saturated fuchsia/purple peonies.  Is it wrong to knock on their door to ask to take just one plant?  Ha.

And, we’re finally getting cherries on our trees!

In August of 2006, we took a trip to Glacier National Park.  We kayaked on Lake McDonald.

And hiked to Hidden Lake.  It is beautiful.

We stopped at Flathead Lake.  Another lake surrounded by mountains.  I’m a sucker, what can I say?

If you’re ever in Montana, Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks are a must, but you shouldn’t miss Flathead Lake or Ross Cedar Forest, filled with giant cedar trees.  Kind of like Muir Woods, but in Montana, with cedars rather than redwoods.

Where am I going with this?  When we visited in August, Flathead cherries were in season.  Fortunately for us, Seattle got their cherry crop to grocery stores first, so fresh cherries were cheap.  We stopped at a little family owned orchard and picked about 8 pounds of cherries, eating some right off the trees.

Before this trip, I wasn’t a huge fan of cherries.  After, I couldn’t get enough of that sweet fruit.  When Ben said he wanted to plant fruit trees, I insisted on several cherry trees.  Now, we have our own cherries and we’re thrilled.  We just have to eat them before the birds can.

Tangent aside, that is how our garden has grown.  Sure it doesn’t look like Martha Stewart’s garden, but we also don’t have a full-time landscaping crew to maintain the grounds.  Simple is the name of the game around the Bowe household.  Have you looked backed at photos to be surprised at how much your garden (or kids)have grown?  Any unplanted plants popping up after several dormant years?  Are you particularly proud of a certain plant you’ve grown?

We’re kicking off the first annual garden party week, starting with our humble garden.  The catch?  Before you’ll see our current garden, you’ll have to endure the past five years.  Be prepared, it wasn’t always pretty.  And it could still use some work.  Ha.

In the spring of 2006, our front yard was so bare.  One pine shrub, one dead something and large rocks.  That’s about it.  Yes, rocks are the manly version of landscaping.

In the fall of 2006, we planted tulips and allium.  Spring of 2007 rolled around and we had bulbs galore, along with a few other perennials.  And a lot of dirt.  Oh, and a dresser waiting to make its way inside.  And untrimmed windows, installed the year before.  We really are classy.  Ha.

Honestly, I have a black thumb, so even this was a huge accomplishment.  But, I almost forgot just how ugly this actually was.  The dirt really bugged me the most.  Especially because the other side had boxwood, my favorite evergreen, surrounded by washed river rock.  And, if you look closely at the far right corner, you’ll notice a small topiary tree.

By the end of the season, it died.  Too little sun under the giant maple trees.  The small three trees (the two on the left were peach trees and the right was a weeping cherry) in the foreground followed a year later.  Fruit trees are Ben’s kryptonite.  Seriously, he is a sucker for any fruit tree.  I’d like to say I was sad to watch them go, but I wasn’t.  I don’t want our front yard to look like a mini orchard.

While the front yard was getting attention, the north side was not.  Shade areas were tricky to me, so all we had were two lily of the valley I had transplanted from my great grandma’s garden back in Minnesota.

Notice the chain link fence, too?  That has changed since, too.

In the summer of 2008, we let the perennials die ripped out the front garden to plant several rose bushes and covered the dirt with more washed river rock.  Sadly, I don’t many photos of this.

Apparently, I was too busy trying to raise that cute little boy.  We built the window boxes and shutters that same year.  No photos of the boxes then, either.  However, in 2010, here is the green and purple color scheme we had.

The boxwood have ha their ups and downs.  This year, they’re looking better than ever.

My favorite rose-bush had flowers that started off an orange-peach color and turned pink as they aged.

Sadly, this past winter killed the plant.  Odd, considering I’ve had really good luck with the roses.  But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.  We planted three new pink rose bushes this year.

How has your garden grown?  Have you ever planted something only to realize you don’t like how it looks a year or so down the road?  Or have it die from some unknown (or known) cause?  Other than normal growth, does your garden change often?