Garden Update: Sunday morning walk with Millie

My favorite time to walk my garden in Ojai, is the first thing in the morning...usually around 6:30-7:00 with Millie, my little lab and a cup of coffee. 

I actually should call it my cup of cream with a little splash of coffee.....so bad! 

Millie likes to walk/sniff  the property to let every creature know... she owns the place.  

I think it  works, if you know what I mean

We planted all of the beds along the front drive with things that would spread and spill out over the  gravel and soften the edges of the curves

We are at peak summer bloom in the perennial beds and each little niche and nook has brought some interesting things.  

This garden is just a year old yet it looks like it has been here much longer than that. Just what we were striving for.  I think having these 100 year old oaks helps too.

It is a little bit on the messy side with less structure than most gardens.

Many of the plants we chose are traditional  coastal California plants, used over and over...we just put them together in a very non-traditional way.  

Roses with cacti and succulents.  

Spiky  with soft and fluffy, light with dark .... and so on..

This is florabunda rose:  Tuscan Sun.  We used lots of roses in this yard and they pop up here and there with a shot of color.

Pink, orange and blues are the palette in this garden and the plants are really showing their stuff.

We have so many hummingbirds right now,  they could care less about the feeder we have on the front porch.

Along the ranch fencing we used blue Agapantha and white Ice Berg roses with yellow Daylillies

The bed above is the home to a huge Sycamore which is a protected tree species, here in Ojai, along with the coastal Oaks

I really like this little  little water feature adjacent to the front rock wall.  

I put some ice bergs around it  too and may add a trailing "something"...can't decide  yet... to soften the edges

Every one love this swing on the big oak in the front yard, right next to the orange orchard

Millie decides how much energy she will spend on each morning walk and as the temperature gets higher she has less interest  to be out in the yard with me, unless we get out the  frisbee!

I actually like these simple wine barrels in this yard and they don't really require too much water once planted with drought tolerant perennials, some sand and cactus mix.

Here is an example of using purple with orange

Spiky with soft  

More dark with light, lime, purple and orange

It was about 105 degrees up here this week end...not fun for too much gardening but it won't last...

My neighbor across the road, Mary, just had her 99th Birthday.  WOW
Things seem to live along time here....even people!

Here's to the start of a great week
~kelley~