I walked around the outside of our home this morning with my camera and took photos of, well, pretty much everything. I wanted to share those today. Photography note: I just switched my DSLR to record photos in both JPEG and RAW - all of these photos are from the RAW file, the difference between the two is amazing. I had heard bits here and there about shooting in RAW, and I finally took the time to look up the difference (here's a wonderful article which explained it well). Anyways, on to the photos.
These two shots show the front as you approach with the main bed. On the left, the big tree-like thing is a vitex with gold lantana blooming underneath it. As you get closer we have a lemon tree and fig tree in pots.
I'm excited about our lemons this fall - I haven't taken the time to count, but we've got to have at least 50 forming, and the tree isn't even that big!
The fig tree has a fair amount of fruit on it, we should have some ripe ones in a month or two. That front bed is really beautiful, with a great variety of gorgeous plants that are almost all in bloom right now. Here are some of my favorite shots from this morning of the bed.
You may have noticed earlier, when you approach the front door there's more: an herb box on the right and some angel wing begonia in pots by the door.
We also have a duranta on the other corner of our driveway at the garage - this thing was tiny when we planted it about 3 years ago and has gotten absolutely enormous. It has really pretty small purple blossoms that attract butterflies.
Going around the left of the house to the back yard, we come to our back porch and pergola. We planted wisteria several years ago - one plant at the base of each of the 3 main posts of the pergola. It's done a terrific job of climbing and covering the pergola, I'm hoping it completely covers the top this growing season. The main blooming happened during spring, but we got a late burst of blooms lately, too. They make a cluster of gorgeous purple flowers.
Kristen did a great job picking out a great little patio table and chairs, and also found these fun colored glass lanterns that we've hung from the pergola ceiling. Sometimes at night we'll put some candles in them and light them, that makes a pretty nice effect too. And of course, more plants in pots for the porch as well.
Moving out into the backyard and looking back, you can see the wisteria is really pretty monstrous. I actually need to do some training of those tendrils to make sure they climb the right way (and probably some pruning, looking at this photo). It's totally transformed the back porch from a scorching oven to a shady, cool (well, not as hot) retreat.
And last but not least, we recently revamped this back bed by adding some nice stones and putting in some knockout roses. I think it turned out quite nice. Oh and if you're wondering about that terra cotta colored barrel - that's where we collect our rain for watering the garden.
Hope you enjoyed our little tour - I definitely enjoyed taking the photos! I promise I'll do some updates soon on Liam and our garden - we had our first main harvest!
