Sunday, July 26, 2015

Country Porches and Scattered Flowers

Since I'm waiting for the Fall Finale to begin in my perennial gardens (yeah, it's almost that time of the year again, isn't it depressing?), I thought I'd show you the flowers I have displayed on my porches.

My house was built in the late 1800's.  In fact, it is so old that there really is no record of it.  The farthest back we could find was when a man built a flour mill on the river below us, so we assumed he built this house then too.  

Although the original brick house still stands, we've added four porches since we purchased the house over fifteen years ago.  For today's post, I'm showing you two of the porches.  They are located at the front of the house and therefore receive the most guests.

Pictured below is my front porch.  If you are a regular reader of my garden posts you will have often read "The view from my front porch" or "The view from my kitchen window".  My flower garden that I take the most pictures of lies right in front of this porch.  The kitchen window is the small one to the right of the porch.
 My husband recently ripped out a beautiful, but over grown spirea bush that was located where you see the pots are now.  It was too late to plant anything new in it's place, so I just put pots of annuals where the bush was.

Notice the moss growing on the stone on the bottom left of the picture?  This is the north side of our house, so I plant impatiens and hosta in that garden bed, and the moss grows beautifully on the rock.  My husband wanted to remove it and I screamed "Don't you dare!  Most people would pay to have moss like that!"

This is the side view of the front porch.  I have three different varieties of coral colored hanging baskets.  Shade happy ones on the north side, and sun happy ones on the west side.  I also have a wrought iron planter hanging on the wall that is filled with ivy, impatience, and some pansies left over from spring.  There is another wrought iron planter filled with ivy on the metal coffee table.
 This is my side porch where most of my visitors enter so I try to keep it the nicest.  I have a mix of wood and wicker furniture on it, but the only ones who ever sit on it are the neighborhood cats because there isn't much of a view from this porch.
 I change the pillow and the welcome sign out with the seasons.  This summer I went patriotic, but in the fall it will change to sunflowers and scarecrows and in the winter it becomes snowmen.
 I picked up this wooden wheelbarrow at an end of summer clearance sale years ago.  I lined it with landscaping fabric and moss, and filled it with soil and impatience.  I know someday it will probably rot, but my husband will fix it when it does.
 The four planters were on my south porch but the deer kept eating them so I moved them here.  This porch is right in front of my driveway where we park our three cars, so it is blocked from the deer at night.  I'm not sure how well they will grow here as they are sun plants, not shade plants, but I was growing so tired of never seeing any blooms that I had no other choice.
 I normally have a ton of sunflowers this time of the year, but the deer ate every last one of the them except for two.  In a few more years we will gate off the front of our house.  We decided the deer can have the entire yard, all I want is my porches and front garden.  I'm getting too old to care of it anymore anyway!
 This is 'the view from my front porch' that I talked about above.  I love my little, never used butterfly house!
 I planted this annual (cleome) in this garden this year.  I was hoping it would grow taller, but it only grew about two and half feet.  It did fill out nice and the deer have left it alone for the most part.  Hopefully, it will reseed for me.
 This is a late blooming daylily.  When it blooms, you know fall is near.   As much as I enjoy seeing it's golden face, I also fill with sadness for I know summer is coming to an end.
 Another sign of fall is the Black Eyed Susans.  They just barely started to open up.
 Here they are in front of the purple coneflowers.  They make such a nice contrast and pairing, don't they?
 And I'll leave you a close up of some bee balm that I spotted growing along my fence.
And that is the North and West porch.  If you want to see the South porch, check out my fashion post from Friday for I took pictures on that porch.  As for my East porch, I don't have many flowers there because no one really sees that area of the house (and the deer like to eat anything I put back there too). But I will take pictures and post them later because it is a pretty place we like to hang out as a family.

Have a great day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE.

11 comments:

  1. Beautiful garden and flowers. And oh how I love your porches! As an apartment dweller, we don't have a garden, but I enjoy our balconies and planter boxes, and admit to sometimes feeling just a bit envious of gardeners like you who have a bit of land to muck around in.

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  2. Oh how I could just sit on one of your porches for hours...beautiful!

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  3. Amy, your porches are fantastic! I miss having a true front porch in our old farmhouse. There is nothing like sitting on one during a rain storm. Your garden blooms are beautiful too! Take care, Tara

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  4. Your front porch is so inviting. I love all the natural color and the butterflies on the wall are a perfect touch. I could sit here and enjoy the hours pass by.

    Carole @ Garden Up Green

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  5. Your front porch is so inviting. I love all the natural color and the butterflies on the wall are a perfect touch. I could sit here and enjoy the hours pass by.

    Carole @ Garden Up Green

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  6. Love all the color you have exploding in your gardens. What a treat to see all of that gorgeousness from any porch! Thank you for sharing this wonderful post on The Maple Hill Hop!

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  7. Your porches are just lovely. I wish I had one at my house. Thanks for linking up at the Tuesday Garden Party.

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  8. Amy, you are so lucky to have such a beautiful , covered front porch! You also really have a green thumb!
    Thanks so much for sharing with me for Something to Talk About!
    K

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  9. What a lovely garden with such pretty dollops of color! The porch looks quite inviting to sit for a moment.

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  10. Such beautiful flowers and a very inviting front porch. I love the wagon. Very pretty!

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  11. Great post, Amy, with some delightful flower photos. The wheelbarrow looks great.
    Thank you for joining Floral Friday Fotos and I hope you can share some more of your flower photos soon.

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