Garden Tours: Onewish1: Allison

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Posted by @Sharon on
Let's go to New Jersey this week to take a look at Allison's gardens. Her makeover is amazing and what she does with containers is beautiful. You are going to enjoy this!

My gardens are nearly 8 years old; I'd have to say the hummingbirds would be my favorite thing, and the flower blooms always make me smile.  My gardens have lots of stone walls and borders, most from the stones that were dug up when we added a new retaining wall, the year after we bought the house.

My grandmother on my mom's side and my grandfather on my dad's side inspired me to garden. Grandma grew veggies and lots of flowers (always said she was the petunia whisperer) and Grandpa had a big veggie garden and a shed just for making pickles. I had no idea hanging out with them as a child would rub off on me the way that it has, but after we moved in I felt like my grandmother was guiding me along while I was planting.

The changes have been never ending the past 8 years, seems I lived and learned a few times and killed some and made some thrive. We are always adding new plants or posts to hang them from. Now we just lost a massive tree in front of the house so there will be some more changes; we were going to add another new bed this year next to our deck, but might hold off on that now.

This first photo was the reason I wanted this house, even though the homes are close together lake community lots, at least we had a nice wooded view.

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The yard needed a ton of work on the rotting railroad tie wall that was allowing water to pour down the one side from the top of the yard; it was all wrong and flooded our crawl space the first year we bought the house. You can see all the pachysandra (the bane of my existence) and inside that was all poison ivy and weeds.

   
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This wall was replaced with wall block and the good news is the guys scraped the ground to get rid of some of that pachysandra. I will still find it popping up here and there 8 years later, but it took me a long time to try and get rid of it.
These shots were from 2008 but I love the March / July comparison. We were in the middle of building a shed back there as well.

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 I fill and grow an absurd amount of containers every year. I feel that containers can fill in the spots of perennials past their peak and liven up the area. The posts we added gave me spots to add more blooms and coleus.  Those spots are not full of stones, like my soil.

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For the front yard it was all lawn and more of the same weed filled pachysandra on the right side.

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We added a garden along the driveway and fixed the slope that was full of all those weeds. Of course it was another place to add more containers.

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I always fill containers and line my deck rail with hummingbird plants and put a feeder out there so I don't need to wander around the yard to see them unless I want to. I like to keep them close to try and get photographs.

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We also do extreme holiday decorating (sorry couldn't show you a Halloween photo from this past year since we were smacked with a huge snow storm a few days before Halloween). This Halloween photo was from 2010. Doing this brings us so much joy. Watching the neighbors and all the kids go crazy brings us so much happiness.

Halloween 2010 Christmas 2011
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 How fun your gardens are, Allison. You certainly create beauty with your posts and pots. And somehow you made it quite obvious that you love coleus!

Thank you so much for guiding us through your gardens. I always enjoy seeing makeovers and you've done a beautiful job. The holiday decorations are just icing on the cake!

~*~

Please join us again soon when Trish and I take you on another Garden Tour. 

 

 
Comments and Discussion
Thread Title Last Reply Replies
Gorgeous!!!! by kassiap Aug 1, 2013 3:56 AM 3
Pots by LarryR Apr 3, 2012 7:37 AM 0
Lovely Gardens! by vic Mar 27, 2012 6:35 PM 35

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