Besides that slight obsession with 18th century France…

I live in the past with old photos of my garden acting as placeholders

until the next season is in full swing…

These are the rose covered arches to my lower garden last Spring…

I rotate several of my favorite photos as screensavers to

help me through to the full flush of Spring.

Here’s a hedge of peonies from several years ago…

a particularly cold winter’s reward…

And the lavender just budding…probably late April or early May

By early summer…

this was 2009…

So…here I am at 2011…thrilled to have cleared the weeds

out the planting beds and off the pathways…

The lavender hedge I replanted in 2010 still hunched down…

waiting for late Spring to take off.  I had so many poppies I was

weeding them out from between the lavender and peonies.

The reddish foliage in the front is one of the peonies

that has started to leaf out. They’ll only have buds if it

was cold enough for them in Northern California this year.

One of my many garden projects this year will

be to upgrade the dining room courtyard.

I think I’ve found a good sized crew willing to drop by and

move the huge cast stone table…..

I have assembled a few good pieces

to structure to the area…and

of course always keeping my eyes out for new pieces..

Looking for a pretty set of garden gates…

The Restoration Hardware zinc planters will hold tall

standard orange trees..the scent is intoxicating….

the metal planter in foreground will be uprighted and planted…

 

Here is an earlier photo of the metal “planter”

found it for @ $60 at The Alameda flea market…

Love good deals…and pieces that can work in or out!

A mostly green, white and gray landscape

Calm, cool, fragrant, and less labor intensive than the lower garden…

Just a rough view for now….

Have a wonderful, busy weekend!