Garden Party!

WELCOME to our Garden Party! Please come in! Everyone is invited to relax and enjoy. Just step over our cat, Rex, on your way in!

Cielo is our hostess at The House in the Roses. Stop by her blog to see everyone's beautiful gardens! Before you do, here's a peek at my Southern California summer gardens!

Please join me in the front yard! Our home faces North which seems to be ideal for hydrangeas, both mopheads and lacecaps.Violets Pink JasmineImpatiens And more hydrangeas! I never thought I would admit that I love hydrangeas more than pink roses! The summer heat is great for numerous and large blooms. However, the intensity of the summer sun can burn the blooms, so I place a large umbrella over the plants to shade my precious pink balls of beauty!
My favorite variety are the pink variegated mopheads! On the East side of our home we grow yellow roses in front of the wrap around porch my husband built.Please follow me around to the back yard where we planted 3 pink rose bushes.

A few years ago we planted Morning Glory around the back fence. It grows like a weed and quickly gets out of control. Ask our neighbors! Several years ago we planted a Sally Holmes antique climbing rose on each side of an arbor my husband built over our back deck. It's finally climbing over the top. I look forward to a summer when the two Sally's meet in the middle of the arbor. I tease my teenage daughter that by the time she marries, the Sally Holmes' will cover the arbor where she will say her vows. She thinks I'm kidding!In the days before our pool, we had a small vegetable garden, a swing set and later, a giant trampoline. Now, there is limited space for a vegetable garden so we have only squash, tomatoes and corn. Yes, corn! I'm so excited to serve fresh corn on the cob this summer! We planted 60 stalks hoping for an abundance to share with family, friends and neighbors! After harvest, the corn stalks will be a festive fall backdrop for the Pumpkin Carving Contest I've been planning to host for years! Maybe it will happen this year!
Please follow me to the deck where we enter our home from the garage. There I have a flower box filled with pink petunias. It sits under the shade of a Crepe Murtle tree. On some mornings, I sit at a bistro set I purchased in Mexico sipping coffee. . . gazing at paper lanterns purchased at Big Lots last year, and . . . feeding our resident squirrel. She's a female squirrel we affectionately call "Mama." Mama has been eating sunflower seeds and peanuts from our hands for at least 5 years!Please follow me upstairs! Just outside our master bedroom, we have a small deck/patio. An old tree that came with the house shades this area and the deck below. I hang paper lanterns from the branches almost all year long. I found my paper lanterns at Big Lots, the 99 Cent Store and Cost Plus Imports last summer. Some are battery operated and light up at night! This year I planted pink petunias in sap buckets and in the flower boxes surrounding the rail. I also added a water feature with potted plants (more hydrangeas!) I squeezed in a "nap time" area featured in a previous post using a $5 metal cot purchased at a yard sale.

Well, I'm out of gardens to share! Thanks for joining me! I think it's time for a nap under our shade tree. . . . Thanks, Cielo, for hosting a fun garden party!