I am a Gemini. I get bored easily. I like change. I garden.

One particular part of our yard has gone through so many transformations it’s hard for me to remember them all. We started out with a very formal circle garden in this area, a simple design of blooming azaleas, English ivy and pachysandra, a hydrangea, and a beautiful variegated holly tree; all originally planted and cared for here by the previous owners of our house (my husband’s aunt and uncle). A late summer storm one year brought down a neighbor’s black locust on our holly, splitting the trunk. We salvaged the hydrangea, but replaced everything else with viburnums (love them!) and old garden roses. This was nice for a while, until the roses got leggy and the viburnums grew huge! So we moved the viburnums to the border of our property and added a few dogwoods and other plants to make something of a woodland edge. Very nice and thriving now!

A year later we cleared the area and built the pond there. But for the summer in between I had a garden that was an absolute riot of flowers. I went crazy planting annuals and perennials that would attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. My husband thought it looked like crap (he’s an orderly sort of fellow when it comes to *his yard*), but I loved the craziness of it all. Every flower was planted with pollinators in mind and it was buzzing with them! I loved to spend time sitting in the middle of it all and watching all the insect activity.

When we put in the pond I transplanted as many plants as I could. The pond is orderly and neat, so the DH is happy, but I miss my wild garden and all the wonder that came with it that summer. The purple flowers pictured above are perennial Mexican Agastache (very popular with bumblebees) and Verbena bonariensis; an annual that re-seeds with utter abandon and is well-loved by butterflies.