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.