Friday, June 13, 2008

How does your garden grow?




When we moved in our house (the pastorium at our church), I knew I loved the spaciousness of the yard.  I had no idea the surprises that awaited me, though, because we moved during the winter.  As Spring and now Summer have come, I have been so excited to watch new things sprouting up all the time.  First we had daffodils and tulips, a first for me since I am from Florida and there's not a lot of success so far down South with bulbs that need cold winters.  

We are total novices to all this plant care.  I don't know if I'd call it gardening yet.  So far we are just waiting and watching.  It seems like every week something new pops up or something we thought was dead and gone starts sprouting green branches and flower buds emerge.  We've almost destroyed a few jems, but so far so good.  We have a few mysteries, like this: 

This amazing flower blooms on these:


We still don't know what they are called.  When we first moved here, these plants were all dried up and Scott cut them down.  We thought they were old corn stalks. As you can see, they quickly made a full come back, but in the meantime we made the mistake of telling some church members about that, and now we get teased, "Hey Preacher, I have some corn in my yard that needs cutting down..."

When I was a little girl, I spent a great deal of time with my great aunt.  She had the most amazing hydrangeas.  They have been my favorite flower ever since.  Imagine my delight when these started blooming:


Up close:

We also planted our first vegetable garden this year.  Here's some squash:


We also have green peppers, jalepenos, sugar snap peas, green beans, watermelon, corn, cucumber, chives, basil, and cilantro.  I took pictures of a lot of the other vegetables, but they are not cooperating with me.  The squash is the prettiest, though.

Here is a grape vine.  We are not sure what type of grapes these are, maybe muscadine.  It's full of tiny clusters.

Here are some Zinnias about to bloom.  The bed around the lamp post in our front yard is full of them.  This is my first time planting zinnias, and I check them at least twice a day in anticipation of the first bloom.

Here is a random view of our side yard.  You can see our dog's pen in the corner.  We love this yard.  All the pine trees remind me of Florida.  There are always pine cones for the kids to pick up when they are extra bored and need something to do. 
One more hydrangea just because I can't resist.

Check out more gardens at The Preacher's Wife, where Lisa is hosting a garden party.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your mystery plant looks like it
could be a Canna. Great plants!
Doesnt bear corn though. :)

Tami@ourhouse said...

Thanks, catgranny. I'll look up Cannas and see if we have a match.

Jackie said...

Hydrangeas are my favorite, too! Yours are so gorgeous. I love the spaciousness of your yard....what a beautiful property!

Cheryl said...

That totally sounds like something we would do!
I love hydrangeas too!

Tami@ourhouse said...

Thanks, Jackie. We are very thankful for our space. God's undeserved kindness toward us, for sure.

Cheryl- glad you can relate to our attempt to get rid of that corn! :)

Anonymous said...

My vote is that they are irises. We have purple ones that look very much like yours. They do wilt and brown but come back brilliantly every spring.
Kelly

Lisa @ The Preacher's Wife said...

It's hard to tell from the angle of the plant, but it looks like a Bird of Paradise kinda sorta. whatever it is, it's beautiful!

I have to ask, is the picture in your header the parsonage? I absolutely love the style of it :)

Anonymous said...

Wow, your flowers are beautiful! And I'm not sure who took the picture of your house, but it looks like something out of a magazine or post card. Awesome. I have no gardening expertise to lend here, as I have a gang-green thumb, unfortunately!

Tami@ourhouse said...

Lisa and Kearsie (aka soundsliketomatoes)- the photo is our farm house, which we lived in before we lived here. We still own the farmhouse, but our parsonage is a brick ranch. We love our farmhouse, but the brick ranch is a good bit easier to maintain! It has its own charm as well....

Thanks for the complements on the photo. I think Scott or I took it, but the real credit goes to I-Photo, the program on my Mac that I used to crop, black-and-white it, and put those soft edges on. That was fun. I used to use Google's photo program before I got this Mac, and that worked just as well, and that was a free program.

Renata said...

Tami, you want to hear something funny?
You and Lisa lived in the same apartment in WF. She was there when I moved in and you were there when I moved out. Small world!