The Greenfield Garden Club Tour gave us surprises and beauties. Our first stop in Greenfield surprised us  with an array  of beautiful flowers.  “From the early yellow narcissus of April to the last lavender-blue asters in November there is a lush tapestry of color, texture and shape.” This house was  on a road above the house I lived in years ago, and it was a big surprise.

I was amused and delighted to see this hippopotamus.  But when we had gotten  around to this part of  the gardens, we had to move along.

Ilene lives very near to our house, and the flowers around the house are lovely, but I had never seen the ‘kiwi-draped cedar lattice arbor, and a Japanese  thread leaf maple which introduces the lush private garden, enclosed on three sides in a palette of green, gold and burgundy.’ It is a small and delightful space to enjoy the beauties.

Mindy and Derek love flowers and have adorned the front of  their  house with wonderful plants. The  4-14 year old children enjoy  friendly dogs, and 2 cats who wander through the neighborhood, and chickens giving the family fresh eggs.  There are various groups of flowers that make everyone happy.

Norm and Marsha live across the street from Mindy and  Derek, and they have long experiences with gardens over the years. “They have two 40 foot vegetable gardens, and  one smaller provides us with cucumbers for pickling and veggies throughout the season. They also have blueberries and raspberries!”

This is a small corner of our garden for my beautiful roses. When we bought our house, and yard, 10 years ago, the yard only gave us some grass, and a skating rink  for the neighborhood kids all winter. But we quickly began to make something beautiful. Over the first 4-5 years we bought trees, shrubs like hydrangeas, winterberries, and, of course, roses. At the very back of the garden, we built a ‘hugel’ to raise the spot with logs and then cover with good soil. There are many ways to be able to  control most of the water.

Visiting the different gardens is wonderful, showing different ways to organize a garden. Now, having seen other gardens, I am thinking of what I might do to make our garden even more lovely.