Garden Ideas on My Dream List

A bee on lavender in my front yard

I used to look at people who gardened and think, Wow, that is so not a fun activity.

Monet's Giverny, France - Pond and bridge anyone?

"My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece."
- Claude Monet

This gardening-used-to-be-boring thinker has totally completed a 180 degree turn around. My brain neurons starting firing away and turned my thoughts in a different direction after we purchased our first home. Since then, I am indeed a gardening nut.

Selah Ridge Lavender Farm, Washington - Periwinkle chair and perfect photo backdrop!

I am now committed to gardening. I love gardens. Adore them. Visit them. Dream and plan and copy them. Compare them. Take pictures of them.

High Leigh, Hoddesdon, UK - Fountain with aging statue, surrounded by close clipped lawn and neat pathways

As I am now older and wiser, I've realized that it is OK to not have the Taj Mahal of gardens. That's quite a bit of work. Instead I can appreciate perfectly coiffed ginormous gardens and rely on the work of others to create and maintain beauty.

Without breaking a sweat.

Naches Heights Winery, Washington - Waterfall and friends!

I carry images and a healthy dose of peace and contentment in my heart from the gardens I have visited. As such, I take a small piece of each garden sanctuary back to my own plot of dirt, where ideas and dreams seed and sprout, and eventually adapt to life with me.

Paris, France - Bouffant blowsy flowers, lush beds, green aisles, archways, gorgeous building

Gardening journal - Add these to my dream garden please: statue in a pond (spouting water), bridge, wide lawns, low brick fences, flower beds, patterned plans, waterfall, resting spots, plenty of lavender, bees (plus a hive or two), mystery and enticing features . . .

"It was such a pleasure to sink one's hands into the warm earth, to feel at one's fingertips the possibilities of the new season."
- Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden