The dog days of summer are here. It’s so hot and muggy outside, I’ve given up on the garden until cooler weather arrives. Now is the time for indoor projects, and other pursuits conducted in the heavenly bliss of air conditioned comfort. The yard has turned into an overgrown jungle now that the rains have returned, after our long year of drought. That’s the story in Florida. It’s either drought or monsoon, with nothing much in between. Thankfully, I took plenty of pictures this year, before the black-eyed Susan, scarlett morning glory, and sweet potato vines ran amuck over everything in their paths. If you stand still longer than 30 seconds, they will start climbing over you, too! Here are a few photos. Enjoy!
An overview of a new rose bed, with my goldfish pond in the background.
Hubby did all the beautiful brick pathways and patios over the last couple of years.
“Peter Pan” dwarf agaphanthus in the same bed, keeping “All American Miracle” hybrid tea rose company.
The world’s happiest cigar plant (cuphea). Hummers love it!
Another view of the pond, and more of Mark’s brickwork.
So there you have just a few pictures from this year’s garden. I’d love to know what you’ve been doing in your own gardens. Is anyone else into ponds? Roses? Laying brick? Hope you’ll share your ideas, and please feel free to ask any questions you like. Gardening in Florida presents a lot of challenges at times, but much of what works here will work in other parts of the country, too.
Who's Your Granny? 
My partner is a brick layer…I say with an evil glint in my eye. We have built a pond at this house but are about to move. Perhaps a replica of this will be our fishes’ new home! Do you mind?
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Well, of course not! So glad you like it! Though if your hubby is a pro, he might do it differently. Mark hand collected every brick in our yard from demo projects in downtown Orlando, and brought them home, one car trunk full at a time. We had amassed over 7 tons of brick by the time we moved into this house, and we moved it ourselves, using his old VW van. You can’t imagine what a job it was, and neither of us is a spring chicken, eaither!
He learned by doing. The pond is VERY simple, and was done in a weekend. It is a 6′ wide 2′ deep galvanized watering trough. I personally like the country look of galvanized metal and would have been fine with that, but Mark wanted to tie it into the brickwork he had already begun.
The bricks around the trough are simply stacked up like a drywall. I can pull them out if I need to reach something, like an overgrown plant or the cord to the pump. The pathways circling the pond were laid over a course of a few weeks, later that summer. (After we agreed on the patterns to be used. I won that round! Ha!)
The rest of the paths were laid using several different patterns. I’m going to take some pics of different sections of it and posts here in the weeks ahead. Right now, the yard is so overgrown, the paths are not looking their best. But as it cools down, I will be neatening everything up again, and doing new photos. Everything looks different now, including the current pondscaping..
Mark would be proud to think you liked the pond enough to want to do something similar. Thanks for visiting, and stop back by when you can, to see more of our patio and courtyard areas.
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