Garden Tour

Today, Penny, Lezlee and I went on the Real Gardens for Real People Tour. I have been several times, but it had been a while. The gardens were all in central Phoenix this time.
We started at a Montesorri school. They had a garden of the senses there with areas for smell, touch, sight and sound. It was a nice garden for kids. This pretty deep blue flowers where at the school.
There were a couple of beds of flowers that were densely planted and growing and blooming well. I like that kind of planting the best. It looks the most natural and pretty to me. Penny likes a more formal and sparsely planted look.

These two shots are of some of the areas I liked.

At another home, there was this nice container of succulents complete with gecko. I really like succulent plantings too. They are very structural and interesting looking.

This was another container planted at the same house. The under planting here really did have white on the leaves, it isn't just a trick of the light. I don't know what the plant was, but I liked it.

This huge tree is only like 15 to 18 years old. It's enormous and quite nicely trimmed. It 's a great tree for this back yard.



And she had some fun ornaments in her garden. I liked this bee.

And this sprig of glass beads.





This yard had nice plantings all around the edge of the yard and a nice view from the back corner.

One thing I thought as I looked at all the gardens, was that my vegetable garden was really doing quite well. No one's vegetables really looked a lot better than mine. Most just had more room.

I LOVE sweet peas. These smelled heavenly. I have tried repeatedly to grow some. I have some growing now, but they aren't anywhere close to as big and blooming as these are yet. The little micro climate in my back yard is much shadier and cooler and slower than those with sunnier locations. I still have high hopes for my sweet peas though!

These daffodils and poppies were in the front yard of the same house. Penny was giving me a hard time over my single blooming daffodil in my backyard. I have limited room though and am concentrating more on veggies. I'm glad to have what I have though. I will have some freesias and rannuculus soon too!

I thought this sign was rather entertaining. I felt this way several times.










The same house had quite a collection of things, but they were all pretty nicely displayed. There were lots of nice areas to sit.

A small birdhouse collection at the same garden.

Another fun little spot in the same yard.













A nice planting. I love nasturtiums. Mine are up, but not quite blooming yet. Again my cool shady micro climate.

Sunflowers, artichokes, petunias.

This was my favorite garden. Almost every square inch was dedicated to a plant that grew food. I loved it.

Same yard. They used some fencing for trellis. And the read building is the chicken coop. They use the chickens to help make compost and eggs!

Another garden, nice planting and nasturtiums again.

There were a couple of fun mosaics on the fence posts in the backyard.

A nice comfy backyard retreat.