Travel Tips

This is the view we get from our kitchen window. I try to make it stay nice by having a series of plants which bloom from early spring tulips and pansies to the later lilies, petunias and gladiolus. The hottest part of summer will make it less appealing but we can still have coleus and petunias hopefully.

This pink hydrangea has been in place about 4 years and this is its best year so far. I think it lacked suffiicient watter some in the past but Mother Nature (and I) have remedied that. It is unusual in that it stays pink whereas most hydrangeas in our area turn blue due to the acid soil unless heroic measures are taken to alter the soil.

My 9 year old grandson gave me the basket for Christmas by wrapping a note and sending me on a hunt for the present which he and his dad had set in the garden. I love the basket of course and the red verbena sets well in front of the blue lace-cap hydrangea.

The Spring of 2005 has been a cool one and with significant rainfall so the pansies stayed nice longer this year. I also tried some swiss chard which did pretty well. It adds some green but on stems that are red or yellow.

This rose was advertised as being thornless and tolerant of some shade. I had doubts until this year but had a nearby tree removed due to ice damage and it really came out. It is indeed thornless and gets less than half day of sun. I put the name as the title and am glad I don't have to try and pronounce it.

I always hope (usually in vain) for the red roses, purple/blue clematis and white clematis to bloom at the same time. This year I got lucky and have a few roses left and a few white clematis mixed with the blue.

This pergola is the entrance to my backyard. It was built by a friend of my wife's as a token of gratitude. She retired as a school counselor but continued to return (at no pay) to help as they needed it. It is covered by a climbing hydrangea and the entry is surrounded by hostas and hellebores.