Dirt Therapy

Following the Huntsville Garden Tour (see the previous post), we were invited to see the garden of Tom Simpson and Dan McKitrick who lived just a few blocks away. Wow, I'm glad we saw it. This garden was completely different from the tour gardens. This garden had more sun and much more color. It was small too but jam-packed with plants. The word that came to mind as I walked through it was "electric". There was so much vibrant color from both plants and decorative objects. This was obviously a garden belonging to an obsessed gardener! The garden filled the entire property, the front, side and back of the house. This is the front as seen from the street. There was so much to see at every turn, not only plants but whimsical touches as well. Love the purple chair! This was just one of the bottle trees in the garden. This is along the pathway leading to the back of the house. The back garden is lush with plantings, surrounding a firepit and water...

This garden featured an array of hydrangea types, including "Annabelle" and Oakleaf (behind the statue) as well as mophead and lacecaps (macrophylla). On Saturday, we drove to Huntsville to attend the Spring Garden Tour, a self-guided tour of five private gardens in the historic district. It was a very hot day but all of the gardens were shaded and they were all within walking distance of each other. I did not think it was too bad hot even though Michael was sweating bullets. We ran into gardening friends Cyndia and Steve, who took us to a terrific place for lunch. They also took us to another fantastic garden that was not on the tour. I will post photos of it soon. It was a good day! The gardens were small and many of them were designed by Bill Nance, a noted landscape designer who died two years ago. As hot as it was, one thing that I noticed was how calming and cooling the gardens were. Lush green lawns were bordered by boxwoods, hydrangeas, ferns, hostas an...