Pages

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Busy Life - Still Life

We have been missing in action…..life has been busy and blogging was on a back burner.
I had 4 weeks of back to back company visiting the cottage at the end of the summer and into the fall. I love visitors any time of the year but normally our visitors arrive early to mid-summer when the garden is prettier and the cottage a little more spiffy. So the late visitors have thrown me off schedule a little and jumped right into a busy fall.

I retuned back home to load up the car and head to New York City to attend a family wedding and to visit Andrea the "Broome" half of this blog. We haven't driven to NYC in several years, it is a long drive from Michigan, 10 to 12 hours depending on the dreaded road construction. But we had a few pieces of furniture to deliver to Andrea. The visit was great and the wedding beautiful. Now I am trying to transit back home after spending the summer at the cottage, never an easy process for me.

These photos seemed like the the perfect way to wrap up the summer by Lake Michigan.  Lake Michigan is always a source of beauty and amazement to me. The lake is different every day. It can be dark with crashing waves or it can be peaceful like I experienced recently. We had a few days of the rain and when it cleared out it left Lake Michigan still and clam with hardly a ripple.




During a walk down the beach I discovered a love note of sorts that someone left behind. A beautiful heart out of collected stones. You can see the rain pelted the sand around the heart.



The heart kind of sums up the end to a wonderful summer. I love my summers by the lake and it is always a little sad packing up the yard furniture and putting the garden to bed for the winter. But the seasons move on and the holidays will be here before we all know it!


Linking to this week:

Amaze Me Monday



Monday, August 19, 2013

Garden Before and After

Last week I mentioned I'd share the new garden area that I planted this year. I wanted to add more flowers to the side of the house, reduce the lawn a little more and add an arbor.

This is the arbor in the early spring before the garden was planted around it.


Before

This is the new addition and as you can see it is quite a difference.
This is the view coming from the front of the house.

After
 If you go to the backyard and round the corner you get a different view, both pretty I think.


The larger hydrangeas were planted on a previous garden improvement project. 





One the right side I added Pink Diamond Hydrangeas, delphinium, daisies, coneflowers, petunias, snapdragons and alyssum. On the left side I planted more Endless Summer Hydrangeas, astilbe, violas and lobelia. The arbor will hold a climbing rose and clematis.



I like rabbits and have them in several spots in the garden. This guy looks a little grumpy, how could he be grumpy among all theses flowers?




This is the climbing rose called Angel Face. I've managed to get a few blooms, my nemesis the deer have been eating them. I love the soft pink color, they are fragrant and smell wonderful.



I like the combination of hydrangeas and astilbe.







 I think it is hard to take photos of the expanded view of the garden. You are fighting sunlight or shade, making it difficult to capture the true beauty. The area is really prettier than I have been able to capture. Anyway, I look forward to next year and having the new garden area fill in a little more.

A big thanks to Kathryn at Make It Pretty Monday for featuring our garden from last week!


Linking to this week:

Amaze Me Monday



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...