Dreaming Of Spring

Even though it may not seem like it

to most of us...

spring is just around the corner.

It won't be long until our gardens

show signs of life.

Some of you are already enjoying

spring blossoms and flowers

but for the rest of us

we'll have to wait a bit longer.

Last spring I started work on our

shade garden

and this fall I planted

50 daffodil bulbs.

I hope they survived the dry winter.

I watered yesterday.

I have dreams of one day having

a garden similar to the garden

I planted in the city.

I shared this garden with you when

I first started blogging.

I thought I'd share it with you again.

We had built a new porch on our old home 

in the summer of 2003 and in the fall 

we put up the picket fence and arbor.

I planted the garden that fall.

This was the garden's first spring.

Above is the little garden shed we built

at the back of our old house. 

To the right..out of the picture is our

screened porch on the back of the house.

Hubby eventually built a picket fence

here and I planted a little garden

and laid pavers.

We moved before we built 

window boxes.

Flowering shrubs at the back of the old house.

We have packed that pile of rocks

3 times 

and now they 

reside here on the farm 

along with a bunch more we dug

up from the foundation that was under

the old barn. 

I framed one garden bed with some of the 

larger stones but I have more

gardens to do.

Poor hubby ;)

Hubby built my 'old' wheel barrow

out of old parts and wood.

I still have it but it's seen better days.

You can see a little bit of the 

window boxes hubby made for me

on the front of the house.

Eventually this front garden

was filled with 

David Austin old fashioned roses

that climbed over the arbor 

and the end of the porch

and many other old 

fashioned flowers.

Some survived the Kansas heat

some didn't. 

Now I'm starting all over here on the farm.

I doubt my garden will be as full as

this became but that's ok.

I'll enjoy it anyway.

I hope you enjoyed this repeat tour

of our old gardens.

Have a wonderful weekend

:)

I'd Rather Be....

...in my garden.

I'm sure every one of us would rather be in 

their garden right now.

Some of you lucky ones are probably

already out there having fun in the dirt

like my blogging buddy Cynthia from

Beatnheart

But...this is what it looked like

Tuesday here in our part

of Kansas.

We were lucky

as we got more wind than snow 

with this last winter storm.

I know some of you out there got hit

pretty bad. This has been 

a terrible winter for many of you

in the east and northeast and

some in the mid-west.

I'm afraid spring will be a long way 

off for many of us this year so

if you are like me...you will be spending 

some of that indoor time thumbing through

seed catalogs and dreaming of getting 

your hands dirty.

This is what I dream of when I think of spring.

These photo's are of the 

first year of our front garden when

we lived in the city.

It was a LOT of work putting this garden in

as we started from scratch with

hard clay soil.

After LOTS of compost, manure,

and lots of other good stuff

we were ready to start

planting.

By the time we left the city for the country

the garden was 5 years old

and was a well established

cottage garden full

of David Austin

climbing and

shrub roses

and many other perennials.

Looking back at these photo's makes me

realize how much work we have in store

for us here in the country.

The picket fences have to be finished before 

we can start on the garden but

I've already got drawings

made and my plant list

started.

COME ON SPRING!

I'm linking with Tracie from

Fishtail Cottage

for

Cottage Flora Thursday

I hope you'll pop on over to visit Tracie's

wonderful blog and check out

all the other garden bloggers

who are taking part

this week!

Are you already making plans for your garden?

Maura :)

Garden Memories

I'm looking forward to having a cottage garden again one day.

These are photo's of the garden my Hubby and I  

made when we lived in the city.

This was by far the ugliest house on the block when my husband bought it in 1999. Nearly 4 years later we built on the covered porch, put up the picket fence and arbor and started planting the gardens. Five years later we moved.

Now we live in a little Farm Cottage with no cottage garden.

Yet.

This was a wonderful place to sit and enjoy the garden and the fragrance from the roses. Most were from David Austin and if you are lucky enough to have some of his roses you know what I'm talking about.

These pictures were taken a couple of years before the roses had covered the trellis at the end of the porch.

David Austin roses in the garden were

1) Abraham Darby

2) Sombreuil

3) Zepherine Drouhin

4) Mme Isaac Pereire

5) Anne Boleyn

I am joining Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.

I hope you will stop over to Mary's and see all the other wonderful Mosaics she has to show you. 

Enjoy your gardens if you have one and if not...I hope you have one in your future.

Have a wonderful week!

Maura :)