How Does Your Garden Grow?

June 2008. I’m not sure what Beanie thinks she’s watering. The weeds?

In the photos that follow, the bird feeder and the butterfly feeder (that’s the blue thing) remain in the same spots. The chain link fence behind our wood fence belongs to an elementary school. Between the fences is a brushy jungle.

November 2008. I dug out some of the Bermuda grass and planted a few small plants. The soil is full of large round stones; you can see I’ve piled some to make a small rock wall of sorts as a border for a salvia plant and some ice plant.

Behind Rose’s back is a small pincushion flower. To her right, against the fence, you can just barely make out a jasmine vine I planted. It languished in a pot in the front yard all last year. I never remembered to water it and it wasn’t very happy.

Right in front of Rose is a yellow daisy-like flower, and in front of the bird feeder is a cape honeysuckle with sweet orange flowers.

March 20, 2009. Some crazy growing season we have, eh? Look how much the jasmine grew during the winter months; it has reached the top of the fence. We’ve added a few more flowers, and the birds are responsible for all those sunflowers under the feeder.

April 2009. This is about the same angle as the June photo. Remember that little bitty pincushion flower? The salvia got huge, too.

May 1st, 2009. Same view as the November photo. The sunflowers have bloomed, and you can see we added a few more plants. I buy small potted plants on clearance—they grow so fast!

Also taken on May Day 2009. Again, this is roughly the same angle as the top photo. These pictures don’t really convey the magic of this little patch of garden, in my opinion, but I wanted to give a sense of how the garden has grown.