Today Alina is sharing photos of her mother Joanna’s garden.
My mother has been working on her garden for over 20 years. When first purchased, her 1/3-acre property in Waterloo, Ontario, consisted of a house and a couple of trees scattered in a large expanse of lawn. I’m sure glad I wasn’t around to mow it!
Each summer, one bed at a time, she grew her garden. Today there is only a small stretch of grass left—just enough for my trampoline. Each part of the garden has a different name identifying the types of plants in the section; there’s the daisy garden, rock garden, woodland garden, and so on.
A clump of primroses (looks like a red form of Primula veris, Zones 5–8) is covered with blooms in the front yard.
Clouds of flowers bloom in the front yard, with a magnificent clump of phlox (Phlox subulata, Zones 3–9) taking center stage.
A stone path winds through contrasting foliage in the front garden.
The woodland garden includes big clumps of great white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum, Zones 3–8), which is Ontario’s provincial flower.
The beauty of the daisy garden is that there’s always something interesting happening anytime in the season. There’s a public path that goes along this side of the property. People often stop to admire my mother’s garden and complement it as they walk by. It’s so nice that Joanna’s art is able to be enjoyed by the entire neighborhood.
Riot of summer color in the daisy garden
Trumpet vine (Campsis radicans, Zones 4–9) covers an archway with bright orange blooms.
Every inch of the garden is filled with beautiful plants, with things to discover around every bend in the path.
The lower garden is a network of paths made of flagstone pavers filled in with moss. This path system was probably the biggest development in the garden. I vividly remember listening to my dad cursing in pain as he attempted to lift and move some of the larger stones in the garden while my mother supervised, directing him to where the rock was to go and making him shift it another inch, over and over, until it was in the right spot.
The stone paths are certainly in the right spot now, leading you past a bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora, Zones 4–8) backed up by a tall purple-leaved beech tree (Fagus sylvatica, Zones 4–7).
More flagstone paths lead from the lower garden up toward the house.
Wonderful color echoes with hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata, Zones 4–8), ornamental grass (Miscanthus sinensis, Zones 5–9), and sedum (Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, Zones 3–8) all showing flowers in a soft, dusty rose.
Joanna’s cat likes to follow her around the garden, supervising the various gardening tasks.
And this is how it all started—some trees and lawn, now turned into a marvelous garden.
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