I realized recently that I take photos at the beginning of spring when the plants are fresh and new but never remember to take photos mid-summer when things are at their peak. Let’s pretend it’s a couple of weeks ago when I finally remembered to grab these photos and we’ll take a tour around the yard.

This is what you see as you drive by.

We’ll start as if we are walking up the sidewalk to the front door. This is the first year I planted the elephant ears and hyacinth bean vine here. I’m loving it as much as they are loving being planted here.

I can’t get over how large the elephant ears have grown.

Walking a little further we come to the front porch. It’s packed full of green with the bed in front, the ferns and all my house plants. Next year’s project will be to redo this sidewalk to match the new back patio.

To the left of the front door we have a large flower bed. It’s still a work in progress but it’s coming along nicely.

More elephant ears along with taller grasses.

I have more hyacinth bean vine on this side but it doesn’t get as much sun and isn’t near as happy here.

Just beyond the front flower bed is the hosta garden under the pine trees. I plan to make this much fuller with more hosta varieties in the coming years.

Heading back around to the garage near the potting bench, this succulent pot has been flourishing in the hot weather. To the left is just after planting and to the right is how it has exploded.

Now to the garden in the backyard. This was in May after everything was freshly planted.

This was the beginning of August. The vines have actually grown quite a bit in the last few weeks and completely covered the arches. Still a lot to do to expand the garden. That will take a couple more years. Slowly but surely.

Next on the tour is one of the beds we created this spring. This is located down by the barn. We built a fence for my bittersweet, honeysuckle and hyacinth vines to grow on and hopefully help camouflage the ugly electric meter and light pole behind.

Four months later, I think we accomplished hiding the meter.

Some of the sunflowers grew to about 11 feet tall.

There is so much I will do differently next year. Plant all the sunflowers behind the fence only. Place the perennials more in front of the bed so the annual flowers don’t drown them out. Add edging around the bed that we didn’t get to this year. Gardening is a learning process. It gets better and better each year as you learn what works best.

The sunflowers are now about done for the year. I’m leaving them a little longer for the birds to enjoy. Then I’ll remove them which will make the fence more visible for what is left blooming this fall.

This is one of the new beds we made around the barn this spring. I didn’t get a photo of it when the lavender was at its peak. The bumble bees were in heaven.

There is SO much left to do around our place in the coming years but ever so slowly things are coming together. Gardening is hard work but I absolutely love it.