Pictures to accompany text soon.  Also, the Photo Gallery tab has many that illustrate the gardens.

We've been designing, creating, redesigning, tearing down and building up the gardens here since 1972.  We started with lilacs, lily of the valley and a lone tulip, our legacy from previous owners. 

The Front Border is past it's prime, in need of a good refurbish.   A new dish garden with mini hostas is the focal point along with a huge birdbath that came with a history that has developed while living at Sunnyside.  A seed grown Horse Chestnet at one end, a red maple at the other, rescued years ago from the back lawn.

The Banking Garden along the drive is in need of a major iris dividing session.  These are family heirloom iris's, long since nameless, intermediates.  I share when I divide so it's a good time to stop by.  It's at it's most glorious in early spring when the Phlox subulata is in bloom.

The herb garden is lovely, too, in early spring, before it get's too robust and you can still see soil.  My friend Ellie and I relayed the bricks a couple of years ago, so it's pretty spiffy.  Next to it is the Grey Garden.  Lots of gray and blue-gray foliage around some spectacular pink tall bearded irises.  I pick lavender for wands and try to keep the sundial reading right. 

Attached to the above is the Sedum Garden.  I taught a garden design class at the local adult ed program and this was the finale.  The class came here and we installed lots of different sedums after my son, Jeremy, had built a walkway and set in some standing stones.  That winter, my labels didn't hold up, I had tried a new marker, and so most of the plants are unidentified sedums.  But, it is a tapestry of texture and still enjoyable.

Two hosta gardens come next, my Eyeball Garden and the Weeping Cherry Tree Garden.  My children used to tease me that many of my gardens looked like body parts.  The first has a purple gazing globe for an iris and you can probably guess the shape.  Under the cherry tree, beside the Mother's Day Arbor, is the second hosta bed we installed, with many more to come.  Underplanted with pink tulips to match the cherry blossoms, it also is loveliest in the spring.

Across the lawn are two Hemerocallis beds, and although marked with a National Hemerocallis Society Garden plaque, I no longer am a participating member of the society.  The sing is sentimental, having belonged to a mentor of mine years ago.  The plants are labeled correctly, where the labels have not disappeared, but I'm tired of the mono culture and plan to replace them with a new dwarf conifer garden this year.  I have yet to find a new home for the hems.  I'm eyeing my neighbors fence with lust.

Under the failing maple, Jeremy built a raised bed with fieldstones years ago.  It is home to more hosta, Geranium phaeum and the everblooming Corydalis lutea.  Early on, the little red violets are sweet. They've spilled over into the lawn, a welcome weed.  These  came as a gift from a dear friend, Ruth King, now passed.  They lift their friendly faces to great me warmly as she would have.   I finally got a Summersweet established here, but it is slow to grow.  The old maple will depart one of these years and in its place a seed grown catalpa waits for room to grow. 

Opposite the maple is one of the first areas we gardened.  I planted a tiny Rhododendron cawtawbience, purchase at the grocery store and around it orange poppies.  Mercy me, what a horrid combination.  The poppies are gone, (I hope) the rhodie is larger some years than others, depending on the winter.  The garden is backed by an hold stone wall that was here.  A variety of plants keep it going all summer and annual white marigolds show it all off.  I plant those in honor of my mom, who got seeds each year from Burpee when I was a child.  There was a great reward to the home gardener that found the first pure white marigold and she tried for years to be the winner.

Behind the wall we've grown a hedge of Snowtip Arborvitae.  This is to shelter and privatize another work in progress.  Two sides of this garden are surrounded by stone retaining walls, so it's almost a sunk garden.  I'm making what were curvaceous borders into a rectangular lawn surrounded by narrow straight borders.  Entrance to this garde is either through a laburnum walk (trees in training) or around the walk through an open lawn entrance.  White metal table and chairs draw your eye inward.  Newly planted Casa Blanca lilies will complement the furniture.  A reflecting pool floats a single water lily - in my mind and yet to come.

Then we have the Sumac Garden and the Fence Border.  I've been fighting Aegopodium podograria for years in these areas, digging it out by hand, taking a whole summer to add 10 short feet to my conquest.  This year, I'm removing plants and spraying Round Up as often as it takes.  I've decided I don't have enough lifetimes left to hand dig it all.  Included in this recue mission are colonies of single bloodroot, European ginger, and hepatica.  I'll be picking Aegopodium roots out of these plants, potting them and then watching to see if I've succeeded.  Much will be carted to the dump, just in case there's a bit of root left behind.

The White Garden is pretty happy as I write, with the Magnolia in full bloom and the double bloodroot safely spreading.  A gift from another gardening friend, I cherish it in her memory.  The white tulips need to be replanted, after several years of bloom, they have finally petered out.  I have a new white azalea to plant.  Double white snowdrops have gone by.  Variegated Lily of the Valley is just up spreading slowly along with some white flowered hostas.  The old larch towers over all, a crook midway  up is a reminder of the ice storm of '98 when the tip bent to the ground and froze solid in the crust for weeks.  White grape hyacinths will come along as the white scilla pass by.  I'll tuck in some white patient Lucy's later on. 

The Pink Garden is the entrance garden to the nursery sales area and shop.  I needed a theme and the beauty bush behind suggested pink.  There are varying shades, and some reds as well.  It's tricky in monochromatic gardens to keep the textures interesting, a fun challenge.  Plants too numerous to mention, but a happy planting overall.

There are troughs behind the pergola. Wisteria, various clematis and honeysuckle share the cedar.  The Fairy Garden hides between the twig furniture.

A Stream Garden is planned to meander in front of the Garden Play House from the lilac meadow to the bog below.  I may get the gardens done before the water and bridge go in, but all in good time.  Helleborus 'Ivory Prince' shines under Magnolia 'Yellow Star'.  A stream of early blue bulbs giving way to a variegated Carex meanders around an under.  A tree lilac and a newport  plum frame the house and look toward the road intrance under the 'William Baffin' rose trellis.  

Behind the potting shed is the Blue Bottle Garden and the Big Plant Garden, both in shade.  Epimediums surrounds several large leaved rodgersias and other interesting shade plants.  At the top of the nursery hill, then entrance is flanked with old stone walls, hostas on one side and peonies on the other.  

Please come and enjoy our gardens, wander at will, listen to the birds and be at peace.  We will be pulling weeds.