Today Bob and Linda Vivian are sharing their Pennsylvania garden with us.
There’s plenty of garden here to keep Linda and me busy. We don’t mind it at all. It’s a labor of love. I think it keeps us young even in our “golden” years. It gets us up each morning.
A morning’s coffee pause before heading out to the garden beyond. That small triangle at the “Y” of the paths is the site of my new Japanese-style garden, completed last fall. Pictures of that garden will soon follow.
This is Paeonia ‘Morning Lilac’ (Zones 3–9), one of the Itoh hybrid peonies. Itohs give you the beauty of herbaceous peonies and the strong stems and bloom size of tree peonies. Just cut them to the ground in fall and they’ll be back late next May.
This is the coolest spot in the garden, even on a hot August afternoon. Would that I could have more time to pause here.
This hosta is electric even after sundown. It made me cringe to dig it up and divide it, but it is doing fine in its new locations.
Here is a short passage between the front entry walk and the perennial garden in back. Itoh peonies and roses, not yet in bloom, reside there.
This is the scene that made me first realize, years ago, that I actually had a garden. Along with the boxwoods (Buxus, Zones 5–9), there is my very favorite tree on the immediate right, the fringe tree (Chionanathus virginicus, Zones 3–9). To the back is a kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa, Zones 5–8), and a variegated Viburnum to the left.
The front walk was years in the making. The stepping stones were a major task. The plantings on either side are a jungle.
Have a garden you’d like to share?
Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!
To submit, send 5-10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.
Have a mobile phone? Tag your photos on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #FineGardening!
Do you receive the GPOD by email yet? Sign up here.
