Garden Tour: blue23rose

Welcome to the Member Ideas area! This community feature is where our members can post their own ideas. These posts are unedited and not necessarily endorsed by the National Gardening Association.
Posted by @blue23rose on
We are traveling to Southwest Indiana to take a look at the lovely gardens of blue23rose. You are going to really enjoy this Garden Tour.

My Mom is probably where I got my love for flowers. She didn’t have an abundance of them or anything fancy, but I remember she loved her mock orange, hydrangea, old rose bush, and irises. Soon to be 80, she still loves flowers, but has kind of lost interest in keeping up with them too much. Flower gardening for me wasn’t something I really got into until about 12 years ago. Somewhere buried deep within me, the passion slept. Now I can’t imagine being without a flower garden.

Our home is on a half-acre lot inside the city limits of Elberfeld, Indiana USA, (Elberfeld population a whopping 650.) There were a lot of plants on the property when we bought it in 1979. Apple trees, grapes, blackberries, strawberries, and lots of shrubs and flowers that I had no idea what they were and didn’t appreciate at the time. So much of it had poison ivy running through it, my husband spent a lot of time clearing the lot.

This is the house we bought in 1979. It doesn’t look like too much here, but compared to the 10x50’ trailer we were living in and a baby on the way, this was heaven! And this is how it stayed for the next 15 years. This picture was taken in 1993 right before we remodeled so all the old plants and some trees had already been removed over the years. The maple tree on the south side of the house and the black oak tree are the only original plants from 1979. Not much to look at here.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/8bc7e9

 

Then we remodeled and added a garage in 1994. Better, but no landscaping!!

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/e0d598

 

Now it looks like this. We added the patio in 2010. This shot was taken from the northwest corner of our lot and is our backyard. The 90 foot plus black oak tree on the right is one of only two plants original to the property. The other is a maple tree on the south side of the house. Although no plans are in the works to create any more garden areas, who knows what the future will bring! A gazebo has been mentioned several times throughout the last 10 years.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/538afe

 

No matter where we dig, petunias abound. I have a difficult time finding anything that will grow under the windows in front of the house shrub-wise, so I just let the petunias have their way and volunteer petunias are always a pleasant surprise. Right now I have some hydrangeas planted under the windows, but they are not doing well.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/3e27b9 Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/83b62d

 

My sister-in-law’s husband gave all the girls in the family a butterfly house this past Mother’s Day. So naturally I put it by a butterfly bush ‘Lo & Behold Bluechip’ and patiently waited for a butterfly to light on it.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/a57326

 

After the patio was added 2 years ago, we connected the north side of the house with the sitting garden on the west side with this grouping. There are winterberries, kerria, Asiatic lilies, English laurel, daylilies, and even tomatoes. My husband surprised me by making the cart this past spring so I could put out some pots. So since I had plenty of volunteer petunias, that’s what we put in them. My Mom loves the smell of these old petunias, so she got several pots too.

Volunteer petunias came up everywhere around the edge of the patio and this ground hadn’t been disturbed for 33+ years! I pulled a lot of them out because I had creeping phlox planted around the patio and was afraid the petunias would suck up all the moisture and kill the phlox. Some were left around the front and the perennial verbena planted next to the steps blooms all summer long. They have weathered the drought fairly well.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/96d1ff Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/cb4532

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/2bfc1d Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/ec9d99

 

A shot of the north side of the house from the other direction. The “Black Beauty” elderberry shrub on the right marks the beginning of where the sitting garden stopped in 2008.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/285649

 

Daylilies are my favorite flowers in our garden. I have 162 named cultivars and about 30 NOIDS. We planted the flowering cherry tree, ‘Kwanzan' to anchor the northwest corner of the sitting garden. Other plants include blue mist spirea ‘Dark Knight’, Double Knock Out roses, ‘Walker’s Low’ catmint, ‘Summer Wine’ ninebark, ‘Georgia Blue’ speedwell, and peonies in spring.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/153582 Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/fc73a1

 

The Sitting Garden. Please keep in mind that 2012 was a drought year for a lot of folks. Indiana was hit hard, so most of these pictures are from previous years. This is my favorite spot and was created in 2008 when I decided that the drainage ditch from the garage was a hazard spot. The bridge idea began and everything else just fell into place around it.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/e3cb5b Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/cccf51

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/6cf044 Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/e7a05e

 

My husband built this bridge. I played a very important role in building, I had to sit on it to get it level while he was nailing it, lol!

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/549cf6

 

The south side entrance to the sitting garden. Just added a clematis ‘Rhapsody’ so am hoping this will be a little more inviting next year. A spring picture of the Eastern Redbud tree anchoring the south side of the sitting garden and a Royal Star magnolia.

 

My husband built the arbor. He refuses to plant anything, but if I have an idea of how I want something, he would build it or prepare the ground to ready it for planting. I have to take that back, he did help plant the cherry tree.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/aff00d

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/9b703a Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/0afee8

 

The south side landscape. Shrubs, Summersweet, tipsy pots, and more daylilies. Tulips and grape hyacinths bloom in spring around the flagpole. In summer, perennial blue salvia blooms along with whatever strikes my fancy around it. Last year I had some onions planted in it with vinca. This year it is volunteer petunias.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/2fe72e Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/834fa3

 

Back to the old oak tree. Various irises, spiderwort, celandine poppies, bleeding hearts, and lots of volunteer columbines live here along with more daylilies. This is where the poison ivy still likes to pop up now and then. The clay pot was one that got broken so I just put it next to the rocks. Rose of Sharon ‘White Chiffon’, Flowering Almond, Japanese Pieris ‘Mountain Fire’ and Crape myrtle ‘Pocomoke’ also grace this area, but are not in bloom here. The large pink shrub in bloom is a variegated Weigela.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/32a2ba

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/f2144a Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/a9bc2b

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/f1b18d Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/da89db

 

North row. This whole row started with just a few irises on one end and was the beginning of my love for flowers. My husband tilled it one year about 12 years ago and I put wildflowers in it. We decided to add the landscape timbers in sections and that has come in very handy when I work on the garden maps.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/1e23ad

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/26fc0d Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/e222b2

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/d415ec Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/6e8a37

 

My husband found an old swing that had been discarded. He used the posts for the birdhouses. Cosmos is a welcome late summer bloomer. The Carolina Chickadees love setting up house in the blue and green birdhouses here every spring.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/43a6bf Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/5f7a41

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/740ae6

 

I love having this single bottom plow in the row. My husband made an outhouse-birdhouse this year to sit on top of the post that supports the plow. As you can see, the drought left me with very little to photograph this year.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/082e73 Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/922512

 

‘Dropmore Scarlet’ honeysuckle grows on the windmill. My husband made the 10’ tall birdhouse this year and I have ‘Barbara Jackman’ clematis growing there. Can’t wait to see it in a few years and hope it makes it almost to the top.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/63defe Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/ef6a34

 

The garden can be beautiful in winter too while all the flowers are asleep and preparing for another year of blooms.

 

Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/bc8334 Thumb of 2012-07-24/blue23rose/963a5b

 
Comments and Discussion
Thread Title Last Reply Replies
Untitled by Sunshineliving61 Sep 3, 2023 11:41 AM 0
Beautiful... by AlohaHoya Mar 27, 2017 7:36 PM 22
I went round twice! by Dinu Jun 7, 2014 12:00 PM 2
Amazing! by plantladylin Aug 13, 2012 4:29 AM 9

Explore More:

Member Login:

( No account? Join now! )

Today's site banner is by Zoia and is called "Volunteer"

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.