Lastelf's Meditation Garden

Greetings All!

I was a very bad girl today.

I took the day from work and tried to get some work done in the garden.

I finally tooks some picture to share with all of you.

My little garden in on about a 6th of an acre. It's a meditaton garden or will be one some day.

I started the summer before last with grass and the awful hedges that you'll see at the sides. We tilled out the maze, fertilized and began planting. A month later we discovered that the stuff we thought was crab grass was quack grass. Quack will start a new weed from an inch of root: and we had tilled the stuff. And added compost. Good Grief.

So we spent much of the first years battling quack from hell.

Last year was a little better. More stuff went in, Here is what it all looked like today.

This is the view from my front door. I still have the wires, but it's a lot better!

As you walk through the garden, angels greet you along the paths.

Here's the first.

It is fantastic!

These all have a story.

I rescued this one from a seller on ebay. It turns out that it was a genuine rescue. I had to drive to Rochester NY to pick her up.

That's a cigar tree in the background.

Somehow it made its was into bucket of rose of sharon that I never got planted. Over the winter the water in the bucket froze- so it spent the winter in a slab of ice.

It has bark just like a rose of sharon, and when it got some little leaf buds on it, I decided that it really wanted to live, despite my mistreatment. So I plnated it at the end of the rose of sharon border.

Two weeks later, I discovered that it was a cigar tree volunteer that I had tossed. It's six feet from a a tiny dogwood. One of them has got to go. That spunky little cigar tree has my heart- but they get soooo big!

I found this little lady at Walmart for $50. What a bargan, and so close to home! Those are some of the rose of sharon in the background, and first spring fairy rose to the side.

She has electric beside her. Last fall, hubby started running electric all over the garden. It made it really easy to put out the dear and the nativity for Christmas. He's running the water in the same ditches. The whole garden is still torn up because the conduit isn't buried yet.

He was going to do that today, but we got side tracked by the upcoming wall.

This angel sits near the back door, You can really see why I stayed home today.

There was six inches of rain this week at BWI. I have the weeds to prove it.

This angel is my hubby's favorite. She hangs by the front door.

This is my favorite angel. She was my birthday present last year. I found her at an internet shop, and I feel like we almost stole her from God.

She's a Joseph's Studio. Sooooooooooooo peaceful

My plan was to get her back outside today, but I ran out of time.

Maybe tomorrow.

She's still inside, too. She was a Christmas gift.

I found the plinth that I'm going to put her on today while shopping for annuals.

Maybe she'll go out tomorrow, too.

This is not the last one, but she's also still inside.

I found her on ebay, and had to drive to upstate New Jersey to pick her up. She was worth the drive, no?

Happy Mother's Day to me!

Hubby bought me this Double Knockout rose.

It fell completely over during the wind and rain this week. I hope it come back!

I planted her first thing this morning. I'm glad. ONce hubby got home, he was all about the wall.

Here are the shrubs that were here when I moved in.

They are really nasty, but provide some sound protection.

There's an angel down at there between two of them. I found her at Tuesday Mornings. I didn't get a close up of her. I'll try again later.

This is a good look at the paths.

Hubby and I are in a nonstop disagreement. I want space to plant and he wants space to mow and hold hands while we walk together. He's winning, as you can see.

The pereninals are up and getting ready to bloom. I made the stepping stone. The far corner is where the arbor will go. Hubby is making it at work with a student.

It's amazing! After it gets in, then a white picket fence goes behind the Rose of sharon across the fron and the left side.

The castle stone blocks.

They ended up as the project for today. I found them on Craig's List.

We started the front wall in the fall, and have worked on it on and off since then.

We got a LOT done today.

The ones that are stacked are not permanent. We moved most of them to the wall today.

Here's the mess at the front wall. That's hubby trying to find the blocks in the weeds.

Lots-a-luck.

When it's done, I'll have a raised bed! Yeah!

Do you see that rose! It was there when I moved in. I've called it a "junk rose."

I've pruned it, and pruned, and pruned it. And look at it this spring! Ha!

Weeds, weeds, and more weeds- soon to be dead.

Note the green right behind hubby. It's the forcithia from hell!

I have to cut it back once a week all summer or the mailman can't deliver to the door.

Well, it's gone! We cut it down.

I found a bunch of two foot volunteers. I transplanted a bunch, and I'm going to leave a couple. I'm going to see if the original wants to come back, but if not, I have left the ones that are well placed. The original was twelve feet tall, and 18" from the side walk.

It took me two hours to drag the scraps away.

The wall close to the end of the day. It was dark when we quit.

The iris are booming. A friend was going to throw them out!

This is their first boom. I had no idea what they would look like.

There is something about the things that you rescue from the trash. Isn't it pretty?

I wonder if they ever saw this in bloom? Tomorrow it should be all the way open.

Anthony Waterer Spirea and one of my beloved electric boxes.

I used it today to plug in the chainsaw that took the life of the forcithia.

I want some low voltage lanterns for the paths so it's brighter at night. I have the POWER! :)

This is a Mary Rose Rose.

I found her in the middle of last summer. I wasn't sure that she would make it. I bought her becasue she shares her name wiht my best friend. She has a beautiful fragrance.

The first thing I did this morning was spray the roses. The black spot has already begun. It's probably all the rain.

That's the last of the water pipe, waiting for installation. When that gets done, I'll have a water hook-up within fifteen feet of everything, and I won't have to drag a hose thorugh the flowers.

I'll probable install soaker hoses at some point, but for now, I really like to water!

Your garden is beautiful -- I really appreciate the tour. I hope you'll host a swap sometime so we can all enjoy it in person!

Things are beginning to grow. That's a golden rain tree. It was two foot when I planted it there.

This is a nice view of some of the paths and beds. They are beginning to to look planted. Yeah!

Greetings Happy!

Why, thank you!

I hope to host a swap sometime. Right now, there's nowhere to sit!

But there's a pergola coming, and in a couple of pics, you'll see some of what will happen there.

Blessings on your garden!
Elf

I planted about ten kousa dogwoods last year.

Not one of them was three feet. I'm doing all of this on a shoe string, so the trees start out small. They are about four-five feet this spring-- and can you believe this!

One of them has these beautiful little blossoms at the top!

People complain all the time that the problem with kousa'a is that they take forever to bloom! Look at this little guy!

Here's a rose getting ready to bloom.

The metal is old security stuff. I'm going to use them to grow Buttoneers air potatoes on.

I found the brackets today to get them installed! Yeah!

These are blush knock-outs. They are not blooming true to color, but the mix of colors on one plant is kind of pretty.

This is a corner of a small seaating area. At least it will be one day.

Look what I found today!

That little guy is an elephant ear!

He spent the winter outside in a pot! He should be dead, dead, dead.

How about that?

The coreopsis came back huge, and the lambs ear is happy, happy.

I think that's a peegee hydrangia in the center. I put in a bunch.

I'll have to post when it all starts to bloom.

And like you all told me, the hardy hibiscus would finally come back. Can you believe that these will be five feet tall by the fall?

Then they die back, and start all over again next year? And this is all the bigger they are on the 14th of May?

I'm going to make a mass planting of spring bulbs in the fall so that something is growing here in the spring. It looks like a wasteland.

By request:

Here's the haul from Harpers last summer.

And there is the missing angel. She's too heavy for me to move, so I'm waiting for help.

There's the table and bench for the pergola, and some of the benches for seating in the maze. ANd a couple of fountains. Next, a close-up of teh very cool benches.

They all need their stain and to be sealed, and then they can go in.

Do these rock, or what?

They need some repair, but I got them for about five dollars each at the end of the auction. It was POURING cats and dogs. Only the diehards were left.

Before I went, a friend told me to remember that the condition of concrete was not the critical issue in a garden. He's been all over Europe, and he says taht he never saw one statue that wasn't broken.

I found a way to repair them over the winter. All need to so is to find the time to do it.

The legs for these are so heavy, I can't move them.

This is a little bench top, one of the large table tops, and my mother's day present from last year.

Hubby found this antique border on Crag's List. It will go behind the wall in the raised front bed. I can't wait to get it installed!

And here's my brick stash.

I found this on Craig's list, too. The lot cost me less than $100.

I will eventually have brick paths. There is more than one way to kill quack!

Sorry that this is such an awful photo. I moved.

When I moved here, there was this huge shrub in the back yard. The first year, it didn't bloom, but last year, it had these little white blossoms. Maybe, ten. I drug a copl to my computer and decided that it was some kind of a fruit blossom.

Hmmmm. so I waited.

And it grew apples!

I went in and hacked away the bottom layers. I do wish that someone had told me that very old poison ivy vine is hairy, and much more dangerous than the leaves of three that it didn't have at the time.

Thee weeks and a round of steroids later, I walked to the back, and saw that it really did look like an old apple tree!

It had thousands of blooms this spring! How lovely.

Note to self: avoid hairy vines.

Here's what happens when you stay home for a day.

You go out buy a few stakes because the tiny little kousa dogwoods are blowing over in the rain and wind, and look what follows you home?

If you don't visit a JD Liquidators in the spring-- you are making a big mistake.

I'll post pics later of the plant markers I bought. You won't believe it!

$11 a tray. That's 36 annuals. Not bad?

Two dollars a pack for perennials. 2-three plants in a tray. Ya gotta love it.

My new birdhouse. It arrived today in the mail.

Ya gotta love ebay.

I'm off to bed. I've got to go to work in the morning.

I hope you all enjoy the little tour. It's a work in progress and a labor of love.

Folks stop by and walk the maze, already. You all are welcome at any time. Let me know that you're coming, and I'll put on the kettle!

I'll try to post the rest of these pics in the next couple of days.

Blessings on your gardens!
Elf

That's going to be such a tranquil haven, Elf. Love your angels.

You MUST go to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. It's just chock full of beautiful angel statues.

Pages and pages of photos here.
http://richmondthenandnow.com/Hollywood-Cemetery-1.html

Wow, I'm glad I stumbled into this thread. : ) Lastelf, you have found some beautiful things for your garden. I just love your angels, I can't even find one, and you have found many. They are the prettiest angels I believe I have ever seen.

I better start searching around, maybe I can find some things, any tips? : )

Thanks for showing us all your beautiful angels and flowers, and I hope you will continue to show more. Happy Gardening. : )
~Lucy

That was very entertaining- much more than what I intended to be doing here...umm...