We’ve lived in this house for about five years now, purchased it two years ago after we realized we were staying and my husband retiring from the Air Force here.

I feel like it’s finally starting to feel like home.

The kids love to help me in the garden and enjoy the veggies and herbs we grow. We all love bird watching and seeing the wildlife in our backyard woods.

We’ve always rented and it’s so nice to finally have a place to call home and the kids can start to grow some roots figuratively and literally. We have no family and few friends and always feel like outsiders since we’ve moved around so frequently.

It took me over a year to get the front yard weed-free. We had so much crabgrass from all the years of neglect. Neighbors who have lived on this street for decades have stopped to compliment my hard work, that it’s never looked better.

It’s a stress reliever for me to work in my yard and garden. I love cutting the grass and digging in the dirt, weeding, all of it.

I’ve had the herb garden since our first year here. The oregano, chives, and sage does come back every year. I can’t seem to get hardy rosemary and my thyme didn’t come back this year, so I had to replace it. I buy parsley and basil every year. I keep fighting cilantro which does ok until I harvest some, then it seems to get mad and wilt or go to seed.

I have strawberries, some lettuces, and a rogue green bean! I transplanted my Russian sage and a trumpet vine on the other side of the fence.

I love gnomes, mushrooms, and frogs. I have lots of fun little statues around the garden.

My spiderwort is very happy this year! I also have a huge hellebore. I got some free Heucheras that are doing great. My lavender is coming back from winter. The irises and gladiolas won’t bloom, so I think they need more direct sunshine, so I will have to find another place for them. In early spring, we have lots of daffodils and hyacinths.

I have a small sun-loving garden in front of our wood pile, at the end of the driveway.

I got this lovely forsythia free from a Buy Nothing group. I bought two purple azaleas and transplanted some grape hyacinths from the yard. There’s also some forget-me-nots in there from seed that I hope aren’t choked out! It was so pretty when it bloomed.

I have two rose trees that were just given to me and I really hope they make it, but their roots were chopped pretty bad, so we will see.

I have three kinds of mint in a half barrel pot so it doesn’t take over. I have prolific lemon balm growing, so I may have to put that in another pot or thin it out.

I love, love, love roses and I wish I had a larger space for a magnificent rose garden.

I’ve had roses at every house I’ve lived in and it’s always sad to move and leave them. I hope they’re being loved and cared for by whoever lives in those homes now.

There was one rose already here when we moved in. I have acquired the others from our local Buy Nothing group and I’ve purchased two – a Blue Girl and Elizabeth. I also have lavender, mini irises, and a peony that has been transplanted for the third time and looks like it might finally be happy to bloom!

I also just ordered some allium that I think will look lovely poking up around the roses. They also are supposed to ward off pests.

I just read that white geraniums ward off Japanese beetles, so we will see if these work!

Here’s my first rose bloom this year – Blue Girl!

The backyard is a lot brighter after we had the walnut trees removed. We tilled the soil and fertilized it well. This is our second year with a nice little vegetable garden. We had a truckload of topsoil and compost delivered last month and that really helped!

I love the raised beds my husband made out of pallets. We have carrots, beets, radishes, bok choy, leeks, green onions, sweet onions. We have several kinds of sweet and hot peppers.

We have peas, potatoes, tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, raspberries.

I plan to get in green beans and sweet potatoes this weekend.

In the far right corner, I am slowly building up a shade garden with more hostas, astilbe, bleeding hearts, lily of the valley, Solomon’s seal, and a little lacy Japanese maple.

The hostas were almost all here when we moved in. I have divided them and acquired more from our local Buy Nothing group.

This is the edge of our backyard fenceline and I love the birdbath from Lowe’s and plan to get a 4×4 to make a more permanent bird feeder.

I have a jungle on my deck. I bring all my houseplants outside for the summer and they love it!

I love annuals in pots that attract hummingbirds and also help to keep mosquitoes and wasps away.

Lots of houseplants were given to me from our Buy Nothing group. I also scout the clearance corners at Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Walmart.

The clearance section also a great way to get very cheap orchids and tropicals!

These two plants were crammed into one container and very unhappy and I think it was only $7 or $8. I separated them and they seem more cheerful alone.

My bathroom windowsill is full of orchids! I can never have too many. Many people don’t want them after the blooms fall off. Maybe they’re not interested in waiting for more blooms or think orchids are difficult to maintain. I don’t know. But I love them!

I’ve always loved geraniums on the front porch. I bring my big geraniums inside for the winter, and they’re happy under the dining room window, so these are about four years old!

So, the landlady replaced the front door and sidelights all of a sudden with no notice while my husband was deployed. She wanted me to paint it, inside and out but I refused. After she berated the poor contractors from Lowe’s who didn’t have the holes drilled for a deadbolt, she painted it herself, white. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the old door, which was red, like the frame surround. I would have never chosen this plain door with plain windows! Now that we’ve bought the house, I plan to get a beautiful front door and sidelights someday.

We have a magnolia and redbud tree that the kids enjoy when they bloom.

I toy with removing the boxwoods and barberry from the front of the house, but they’re quite large and I worry it would be a huge job and mess up all the other plants. I think it’s odd that the boxwoods do great on one side and always look burnt and yellowed on the other side. I don’t think they get enough sun. I’m not sure what to replace them with, and I can’t afford replacement plants that large, so it would look silly with tiny plants.

We have a hedge of lovely lilacs in front of our garage.

I’m so, so proud of our little pollinator garden.

Coneflowers were already here and I have added hyssop, bee balm, salvia, milkweed, SO MUCH YARROW, dill, fennel, a passion vine, cardinalis, foxglove, black eyed susans.

I love how all the plants are getting established and seem happy.

I enjoy working in my yard and garden and I’m constantly moving and evaluating and adding. I can never just sit and not think about how I could change or update some part of it. I love how it’s growing every year!

How does your garden grow?

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