Cottage Garden Glory

Our cottage garden is truly in it's glory this summer.

There's an old saying about perennial garden plants - 

The first year they sleep, the second year they creep and the third year they leap.  

Well, this must be Leap year, because our garden is absolutely glorious.  

It's so much fun to have a garden that gets such abundant sunshine!

I love our house on Grand, but as you can see, we have deep, deep shade
and we can't seem to grow anything but green!

We have lost several large shade trees near our cottage and the result is a very sunny garden.

You may remember from past posts what this little old cottage used to look like...

Here's a reminder.

Really, really bad.  

Fast forward a few years. 

We have remodeled everything.  

Yopu can read this post about the replacement of the sidewalk 

that has allowed us to plant a garden in front of the cottage.

Here's the before view of the row of cottages.

Here's what it looks like now!

Another view, before

And after!

I can't really take credit for the garden design.

I just looked around at the wonderful gardens in our neighborhood 

and selected plants that I knew were doing well in our climate. 

We should continue to have flowers through the fall 

as the Hydrangeas open and the Rose of Sharon plants bloom.

And we have a Hibiscus that has blooms the size of dinner plates! 

 I'll share that in August.  They are fantastic flowers.

We just added this hydrangea - A gift from a friend.

Just wow.

I couldnt resist a little playing around on Waterlogue...

Hope your summer is beautiful too!

Linking to 

Inspire Me Monday at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Through Life

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style