Front Wine Garden at Frog Hollow Farm

Our front garden is called our 'Wine Garden'.  When it was first established FHFB and I would escape to the little black iron bistro table with a glass of wine.  It was a quick, peaceful little get-away during those very interesting teenage years (if you have/had teenagers you know what I mean!). 

When we first moved to our home the front of the house was a very barren little area.  Moss and hard-packed dirt covered the area, it was sad indeed.  We dug up the old dirt to replace it with new topsoil - in doing so we uncovered some wonderful old antique pieces that must have been thrown out into a dump area at one time.  It's hard to believe that people did have areas right outside their homes where they dumped their broken items and other things. 

The challenge with this little garden is that it's shaded by a very old maple tree.  Besides shade, this tree also dumps millions of maple seeds onto the ground each spring.  I think I've told you that I use a leaf blower to get them off of the back porch (they stain the wood if they get wet) - well, I also use it to blow the seeds off the top of the soil in the front garden before they begin to sprout.  I found that raking them out only pushed more of them into the dirt. 

I've planted many perenniels over the years, the black eyed susans and phlox seem to be the ones that have come back and increased in size year after year. Some foxglove have also bloomed this year, but that's not always the case.

Here's what we have blooming right now.  Most of my color comes from annuals that have been planted in large clay pots or inside hollowed out stumps of some trees that were cut down on our street by the power company.

I found a couple of new colors of impatiens over in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago - at least they were new to me.  Here they are - aren't they pretty??

Astillbe....

It's very, very muggy today at Frog Hollow Farm.  FHFB and I are heading in to the city to meet our daughter for dinner at a wonderful little restaurant in the Gramercy Park area of the city called Novita,  then off to see the play Promises, Promises.

Hope your day is a little cooler than ours! 

Ciao, bella!