Blogger Garden Tour Series

Side garden against the garage

A few weeks ago I was standing in my back yard raking up leaves (again) when I started to think about other gardens around me and how cool it would be to go on a few blogger garden tours. I wanted to actually go to their homes to see their gardens, what they've done, how they take care of them and what they'd love to see in their garden in the future.

After running around in my head about how I could organize this I thought... hey I'm a blogger (guessing I'm blogging again??), why don't I just ask other bloggers to send me a few pics of their gardens that I could put on my blog? 

So that's what I did. I put the word out to my nifty blogger Facebook groups and asked who'd like to participate and guess what? People responded! So nice of them...

For the month of August I'll be hosting tours of some beautiful blogger gardens. If all goes well, I'll have six gardens to show you!

The first in the series takes place on Friday and will feature the garden of Heather Benton from New House, New Home, but I thought it would be fun to show our garden first! I also had a few questions for the bloggers so I'll answer those too!

Here we go!

We have a pretty decent-sized yard for Toronto standards and when we first bought the house, there was a giant wooden play structure in the back (the previous owners took it), no deck and a chain link fence. I wish I had before photos for you!

We've done a lot to fix it up including adding a deck, finishing the fence and adding a gate to keep the kidlets in ;).

What do you love most about your garden and what makes it special to you?

I love that it's somewhat shady, but gives us lots of sun in the afternoons (although it does get pretty hot back there!). It's a great place for the kids to play. Although a bit of an eye-sore, the driveway comes all the way to the back so it's a great place for the kids to ride their bikes and play in the water table.

I also love the plants and flowers that come every year. We have poppies from my best friend that she gave us as a wedding gift, pretty purple irises that were here when we moved in and beautiful ivy that covers the garage. Every year I try to get something non-plant related to add to the garden as well... typically I check out HomeSense for little garden accessories.

View from the other side of the yard, across from the side of the garage

What have you learned along the way that you can share with others about gardening or setting up a backyard oasis?

Well we're still learning that's for sure. Mark and I have bad memories when it comes to our garden so we always seem to forget what comes up where and when. We have (kind of) learned not to over-crowd because chances are that things will grow bigger than you think. Our hostas are so big even after splitting them this year and one of them located in the front yard is blocking a hydrangea from getting any sun so we'll move that next year.

We're also still working on dealing with critters and pests. We trying a water and soap concoction to deal with the slugs on the hostas and there are always issue with squirrels and raccoons digging something up!

I guess the main thing we've learned is to be patient (which we have a hard time with) and to plant what we love. Also, planting perennials every year helps keep things growing and flourishing. I find it silly to plant annuals that don't come back!

Do you have any future plans for your garden or do you love it just the way it is?

There is always something to do! I mentioned changing up our driveway a while back on the blog so that will come with time and we'd love to see more colour in the garden beds. This year has been the best so far with colour so we're excited to keep learning and figuring out what works and what doesn't! Mark also wants to give the lines of the garden a bit more personality... he'd like to see some curves as opposed to being straight all around.

Another thing we'd love to figure out is how to have growth for every season. My sister is working on that right now with her new garden and it's something I'd love to get a grasp on so that the garden doesn't look all brown and dead when fall hits.

Take two of the grasses: we accidentally drowned the previous
grasses with the eaves spout over the winter!

Hydrangeas are my favourite! We also have peonies in the spring.

Mark found these ferns behind the garage so he dug them out
and put them in the back corner of the garden

That's it for our garden! Stay tuned on Friday for the first up in my blogger garden tour series!

Huge disclaimer: My husband is the gardener in the family. I'm getting into it somewhat (does raking and dead-heading count?) but you have to start somewhere!

---

Blogger Garden Tour Series

Heather Benton from New House New Home

Jennifer Farr of Kitchen Counter Chronicles

Thea Morris from Time with Thea

Cynthia Zamaria from Recreational Decorator

and my garden!