Featured Plants

For my garden I want mostly bushes in the front so that when perennials die the garden does not look bare. But, I am planning a perennial garden for my postbox area and side of the house. In this post I am going to list plants I have bought so far! It is now summer and I have not put them in the ground and this worries me. I am hoping to continue to water them everyday at least for this season until fall.

So far I have bought the following plants for my garden.

Bushes/Shrubs

1. Mexican Anise: I love this shrub because of its smell.

2. Cleyera: I bought it because of its glossy leaves and whimsical flowers.

3. Rhododendron Maximum Roseum: bought it on sale

4. Janet Blair Rhododendron - it was also on sale.

5. Encore Azalea for my front yard

7. Holland Scotch Broom - looking forward to its blooms

8. Redglow barberry

9. Japanese barberry

10. Blueberry bush: I have actually harvested some blueberries from this!

11. Red Rooster Dwarf Crape myrtle

Climbing Flowers

1. Madison Jasmine

1.Penstemon ‘Red Riding Hood’

2. Lantana

3.

Can You Smell My Garden?

I just finished my garden design, at least I thought I did until I saw and smelled an evergreen shrub called Mexican Anise! Now, I have to have it, somewhere in my garden. Yesterday, I had an impromptu visit to the garden center and bought one to see how it will go with my garden and now I want more. I am considering putting it around the deck as it grows up to 5ft. Originally I had knockout roses but thorns in my back yard are giving me a second thought. So, Mexican Anise is a contender right now. Above is a picture of a Mexican Anise in bloom:

My plan is also calling for a Madison Jasmine. I saw this plant on my walk on one of my family walks around our neighborhood. The smell of a jasmine is so fragrant that you cannot go wrong. Madison Jasmine, along with climbing roses, will adorn my arbor trellis.

I Love Gardening!

Apart from financial benefits, gardening has a lot of other positive benefits. For me, the most important benefits of gardening are overall health, increased knowledge about our environment and our world. Gardening also teaches us a lot about life and life skills. Just by observing our environment we can begin to appreciate everything nature has to offer.

When it comes to health benefits of gardening, it has been scientifically proven that one can lose weight just by doing garden work. I know this from my own experience. During summer I normally lose all the weight I've gained during winter months when I did not do a lot of gardening. Gardening combines aerobics, stretching and muscle-toning. In fact, just by doing gardening and eating healthy, one can lose and/or maintain their weight. Exercise releases endorphins which help with stress and depression.

Another health benefit is distressing and relaxation. So much of what we do on a daily basis adds a lot of unnecessary stress to our lives. So, when I want to forget it all for a moment, I do a little weeding. Taking my mind off things that are not good for me have invaluable benefits. Distressing and relaxation again have major benefits against diseases that are stress related like heart disease and strokes.

Increased knowledge about our world and environment is also one of the benefits of gardening. I don't know how much plants I have researched since I started this project. I did not realize for instance, how much many beautiful plants from Asia have contributed to our landscape. Also, that Europe has so many plants that are native to Europe and Asia. When it comes to environment, I've learned that some plants can be invasive and detrimental to eco-systems and some will do just fine and blend in.

I have also learned that gardening can teach us a lot about life. If you have children please listen up. Gardening can teach you and your children about patience, perseverance, nurturing, caring, diversity, tolerance, and appreciation of what we already have. One time I was gardening with my daughter and she said something that stayed with. She said, plants always grow towards light! Imagine if our common humanity always grew towards light! Where would this world be. This world is so intolerant and we could learn from nature that we can indeed coexist!

So get your gardening on!

My Dream Garden Is Here!

For the past few months I have been designing my garden. It is almost complete and I have been making tweaks to it as I discover more lovely plants. I am truly excited. I can see the finished product already. I just cannot wait to enjoy it. Here is a link to a video I have made to showcase my design and how everything will look when it is done. I used Realtime Landscaping Architect 2011 to design it and I am very happy with the outcome. I cannot wait to get started with installation.