I have a small garden. And a small cottage that sits on a postage stamp size lot. But, never the less, I have three gardens. Well I call them gardens. My front garden I call the “formal garden,” mostly because it is well established and I don’t do too much re-arranging there. I have a strip of garden along one side of my cottage, that I call my “cottage garden.” I change up the cottage garden every year. There are some staple plants like the shrub roses, the gardenias, the camellias,  the holly trees, daisies, and coneflowers. But, every spring I like to add some new perennials and of course the annuals. My biggest garden is the “woodland garden’ which I really should call the “deer garden.” I love hostas and they thrive in my woodland garden, but the deer love them too. When I leave on vacation I come back to hostas munched to the ground.

We have very mild winters, rarely any snow. January and February are clear and bright; it is like summer, only in the fifties one day and the seventies the next. March is cooler and rain, rain, rain. It is my least favorite month. April, May and June are heaven! Sunny and warm days, but not scorching like our summers get. This is my garden season and I am out in the garden puttering almost every day in these months. When July and August come around I go on vacation! It is soooooooo, did I say sooooooo, hot here, to go outside takes your breath away. So I spend time in the UK or other places then, looking at their gardens! 

When I come back from vacation the crepe myrtles are in full bloom. They tolerate heat very well and add so much color; dark red, pink, purple and white. They don’t all  bloom at the same time, they each take their turn. I find that so amazing. We want that color to last!

When September comes our gardens look like they have melted because they have. Melted from the long days and nights of excessive heat. If we didn’t have underground watering systems everything would be lost.

In October I mostly cut back plants and do clean up projects and get ready to decorate the porch with fall planters and pumpkins. This gets me through November as well and then in December the Christmas bows go on my holly trees and I’m pretty much done!

I will add new photos of my efforts in the garden this year. I have added two posts from last year so you have something to look at now.

And as always there will be lots of pictures of the other gardens I visit! Enjoy!

PS……… my cottage has three porches and I spend a lot of time there too, but only when it is not HOT!