From beloved commentor / curmudgeon Raven:
The top photo is from the bottom of our sloped yard. The prayer flags have just about had it but my understanding is that it’s ok to just let them be so we are.
Two is our doggie cemetery that will be overgrown soon.
The next picture is of the azaleas in front of the house…
… And Artemis in her favorite spot in the sun.
Here is our little crushed brick courtyard and a column with wisteria on it.
The hydrangea plant and you can see the planter made from a salvaged manhole casing left over from our sewer project.
The next two are neighborhood shots — wisteria, and an azalea up the street.
The cherry tree next door and our tulip magnolia.
Finally, a shot of Garden Girl and her doggie at the Brevard, NC dog park. The French Broad River is just beyond the treeline.
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Coming up on the busiest season for many of us…
What’s going on in your gardens, this week?
Elizabelle
Gorgeous. Artie!! Good morning, jackals.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Betty Cracker
The French Broad River is so beautiful.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
eclare
Good morning! Woke up early, watching Dateline.
David 🏀Caitlin Clark🏀 Koch
thanks for sharing, Raven.
Very pretty.
Baud
Very nice landscape.
raven
Thanks! Her roses are coming in just in time for us to go to the Outer Banks for a week!
OzarkHillbilly
Those azaleas make me jealous. The 2 I have have barely survived for I don’t know how many years. I’ve tried everything I could think of and nothing helps. I am left to conclude it’s just a bad spot for them. I think I will try moving them to a new location this winter, and put something else in where they are now.
@Betty Cracker: Agreed. I’ve paddled it 3 times I think.
kalakal
Beautiful, thanks for letting us all see it
Dorothy A. Winsor
Love the pic of Artemis working on her tan.
Jeffg166
Very lush and natural looking. A mature garden that gets edited.
Last year it stopped raining April and May in Philadelphia. All the spring stuff suffered. This year it’s rained. Everything is making up for last year. All the flowering trees and shrubs are spectacular.
AM in NC
We are putting our house on the market this week, no no real gardening for me this year, since I don’t know when I’ll be moving. Aside from weeding and tidying, I am gardening vicariously through you all.
Your garden(s) are beautiful, Raven. Thank you for sharing!
Raven
@AM in NC: It’s all the result of the hard work my wife does!
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: They are blooming way earlier every year, they were way past peak at the Masters.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Same here. At least this year we have rain instead of wildfires.
delphinium
What a lovely house and gardens and Artie too! Thanks for sharing.
Still a bit early here to do anything more than cleaning up the gardens and mowing the lawn.
JeanneT
It’s tulip time here. Cherry, dogwood and crabapple trees are also blooming and most of the maple trees have pushed out their flower and leaf buds, so there’s a lovely green haze over the city. My lawn is full of violets and purple dead nettle and bumblebees and butterflies are showing up to browse.
My gardening investment this week was getting a new book – The Gardeners Guide to Native Plants of the Southern Great Lakes by Rick Grey and Shaun Booth. It focuses on native flowering annuals and perennials – trees, shrubs and grasses are not included – and it’s full of beautiful photos and info about plants I can use (and plants I shouldn’t use) to re-wild my little yard. Highly recommended to fellow jackals!
Quinerly
Love your pictures, Raven. I have had Tibetan Prayer Flags for about 15 years…both homes. Actually learned about them on a visit to Santa Fe. (SF has a large Tibetan population for such a small city).
They were a little controversial in my city neighborhood in Soulard when an older couple rented a couple of doors down and asked the neighbors why I washed my tea towels and never seemed to bring them in after hanging them out to dry. I got a good laugh about that. I have them here in JoJo’s side yard. I’m probably violating some HOA rule but the way my house is sited on the 3 acres no one can see them unless in the actual yard.
Mine get beaten to to death with the wind here in Eldorado. Barely last 6 months. But they do what they are supposed to do, casting off their threads. The down side is I have spent 2 weeks destroying desert pack rat tunnels way too close to the house….finding threads that they collect. They seem to be “tying” the threads to bits of cactus to add as protection to the their tunnel entries. Like little prickly doors.
Here’s some great info on picking the correct days to hang them them, to take them down, and how to dispose of them. Oddly, I buy mine on Amazon. Nice authentic vendor. If anyone wants the Amazon link, please ask.
https://www.shrimala.com/blog/a-practical-guide-to-hanging-prayer-flags?format=amp
Mousebumples
Looks wonderful! Great work.
I ordered some native wildflower seeds last week and am waiting for them to arrive for planting. Lots of rain this weekend, but doing a bit of trimming and seed planting (nastursims).
We also have asparagus coming up like gangbusters, so that’s probably on the menu for lunch or dinner today.
MomSense
Gorgeous garden, Raven! You and your bride have done such a beautiful job.
I’m going to tidy up the gardens a bit before I leave, back permitting. Kids are on their way here and will help me get the last stuff done.
There will not be an HOA telling me what I can’t do at my new house and I’ve got a lot of ideas. At least for the small front and side yards, I want to replace all the grass and just have flowers, herbs and maybe some small trees. When my Aunt visits I’m going to ask for her help with the design. Since it’s next to the library and “downtown” I would like to have a little seating area in the front and make it feel like a pocket park. It will all live in my head for a long time though because there will be many indoor chores to do and I’d like to spend time this summer hiking and biking.
SkyBluePink
Lovely yard!
BruceFromOhio
Gorgeous places, Raven. Thank you for sharing.
frosty
Beautiful yard and neighborhood. Everything is so green down South!
What’s going on in my garden? I’ve got the 6’x16′ raspberry patch cleaned out, took out all the dead canes, bought four plants to re-establish raspberries in about a quarter of it. Today’s job is to start digging a trench and setting in brick pavers for edging. Not doing much else this year though.
Anyway
Lovely garden and beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing. Nice house and ‘hood.
MazeDancer
Had no idea your yard was so big, Raven. And that you can’t see neighbors.
Lovely flowering plants. So pretty!
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly: Azalea like acidic conditions and are susceptible to a soil fungus that is hard to eradicate. I didn’t like them enough to persevere after mine all died, but they are very common around here.
opiejeanne
Lovely, Raven. Thanks for sharing.
What’s going on in the PNW is rain. Lots of rain. And two weeks ago it hailed every time I went outside, plus lots more rain, and even an attempt at snow. It was 41f, but that doesn’t stop the attempt to snow here.
I’ve got some seeds started in the greenhouse, sugar snap peas and lettuces hanging out with a new rose bush, 2 artichokes, and a bunch of tomato plants. Our front yard is a meadow right now thanks to all of the rain, despite being mowed last week. Almost all of the raised beds are cleared for planting, and radishes are up in one. I thought we were planting really late this year, but the garden diary I keep says we’re pretty much the same as last year. I think I’ll start the corn in little pots in the greenhouse this year, so when it’s warm enough to set them out they’ll have a big head start.
Steeplejack
@Quinerly:
Amazon link for prayer flags, please. I have a friend in Atlanta who I think would like one.
Quinerly
@Steeplejack:
I just realized I don’t know how to share an Amazon site here.
The two vendors I like on Amazon are “Hands of Tibet” and “The Nervana Store.” I just looked at my purchase history. Hopefully you can find them that way. If not, I will try to figure out how to share a purchase to a website. “Himalayan Bazaar Store” looks good and good prices. There’s a coupon. I might order from them this year. There are different sizes. I like the largest ones.
The prices have gone up since last year. Also, note…they will have a chemical smell when you open. They all do. They are supposed to be thin and supposed to fray. That’s the point. The comments of the ignorant crack me up. Good luck. They make me smile.
JAM
Thank you Raven, I am so jealous of your big space and it looks beautiful.
AM in NC
@Raven: Well, she does some mighty good work!
raven
@MazeDancer: Well we own the house next door too and, for 25 years, there was a painting company behind us across the kudzu field. They recently moved out so now we get to see what is next.
Timill
@Quinerly:
Hands of Tibet
The Nervana Store
raven
@Timill: Tip on the flags. I didn’t realize how big the one’s I got were so make sure you check the sizes.
oldgold
The considered disorder of this landscaping is wonderful.
Steeplejack
@Quinerly:
Thanks. You can always post the URL of the Amazon page (although some can be quite long, depending on how you arrived at them).
Hands of Tibet store on Amazon.
Wind horse prayer flags.
pieceofpeace
Wow! The talent of your bride and you in this garden is impressive.
It looks very natural with pops of color and planned plantings in selected places along with a comfy dirt spot for Artemis. I’d spend every day in that garden, as I like the wild and natural feel along with flower power.
And your home is lovely, with the garden as a perfect accompaniment. My only trips to southern states has been Savannah and New Orleans, which provide plenty of eye-candy. Loved them both, but NOLA takes the win with its 24-hour music venue. To everyone, we might want to go again, any suggestions as to any must-see-do places unique to the South for next spring?
In my garden, I’ve replicated a mini-forest, with redwoods in the back yard and Himalyian birch trees in the front, roses on the sunny side, with fruit trees on the other. These birch trees are unlike European birch as they don’t need any form of trimming, so easy care, and they’re lovely and being horizonal-inclined, provide shading too.
Thanks for posting these photos!
Kent
Very pretty.
So from the comments I assume this is the general vicinity of Asheville NC? As a Pacific Northwesterner that isn’t a part of the country I’m familiar with. We are a long ways further north and behind you in the seasons.
Steeplejack
@Kent:
Raven lives in Athens, GA.
Quinerly
@Timill: ❤️
Quinerly
@Steeplejack: ❤️
TerryC
Beautiful, Raven. Such complexities. Do you have a plot map or an aerial view?
Today we have two things going on. (1) We are planting 50 paw paw seedlings, all within 500′ of our house; and (2) we are announcing to our friends that 9 of our 36 disc golf holes, BRATS Blue Course holes 1-9, will be part of No Mow May this year. That’s nearly a mile of fairways and paths that we will let grow up during the month. Players can still play them but they may not wish to! (This is not entirely altruistic, we are very tired post-Covid and need a break plus one of my main zero-turns is busted!)
Ruckus
@raven:
Looks better than the foliage at the apt complex I live in, although, as apartments go this one is pretty decent. There are 12 buildings, 6 have 16 units and 6 have 8 units, which is what I live in. Grass and plants around each building. The last one I lived in was 5 stories with underground parking. Watching fireworks from the roof on July 4 was pretty cool. It was also 2 blocks from the Rose parade, which made it easy to walk to see it.
Ruckus
@raven:
What I like about it is that it looks alive, like humans live there – and let other animals live there, not processed to be something, something – perfection, or obviously not natural. It looks reasonable, alive, comfortable, enjoyable.
featheredsprite
Hi, Raven! It’s good to hear from you, sweetheart.
Geminid
@Raven: That crushed brick looks like good walkway material. A nice color.
Denali5
The French Broad River also runs through my home town, Knoxville.