Photos of Garden Restoration

Our new mailbox planting of blue salvia.  I miss the yellow native honeysuckle that used to be there, so hope I can have one climbing up the trellis by next year.

From back to front along the driveway we have Carolina Jessamine on the trellis, swamp sunflowers up and to the right, pineapple sage, lavender, purple coneflowers, lemon balm, and a big stand of confetti lantana.  This area was pretty much intact after the tornado.

We have volunteer morning glories everywhere!  I did not plant new seeds this year.

Our lone sunflower faced our neighbor's fence and back garden to greet the morning sun.It is growing where there used to be a pine tree. All of the area next to the house had trees down on it, and had to all be restored.

This used to be a huge, white bottlebrush buckeye.  I thought it was totally destroyed, but a remnant appeared and bloomed this year.

The little fairy house that was an Easter party project for the children .  It is underneath the Rose of Sharon bushes.

My favorite place in the garden.  St. Francis survived the tornado intact, but there were branches down all over around him, and I didn't know he was OK until all the debris was cleared away.  The crape myrtle was only slightly damaged, and the loropetalum, daylilies and hydrangea made it through OK too.  I have had to move and replace , and find our stones to restore  the pathway. Many of them were buried or moved from the tree cutters and machinery coming through.

A big patch of goldenrod on the left of the arch will bloom this fall. This used to be a pathway to our gate, the park property and path to the school behind us, but it is blocked off now until we start hacking away at the downfall this coming winter, to re-create the path.

Our hydrangea in front of the potting area under the house.  It was damaged as well by branches being thrown over the roof of the house and some of the construction but has recovered nicely.  It does get a lot more sun than it used to.

Everything up to the retaining wall is ours. We used to have trees and shrubs blocking most of the view of our neighbors.  The retaining wall is newly built by our neighbor who had a huge erosion problem on the slope.  He had to have everything regraded and a whole new septic system put in.  His house was much more badly damaged than ours. The magnolia tree on the back of our property (right) was badly mangled in the storm, but I couldn't bear to have it cut down.  It does have some new growth on it and even had some flowers in May.

Another view of St. Francis and our yellow coneflowers and some zinnias.

A new Japanese maple, which is planted in the area where we used to have 2 large oak trees.  Thanks to our friend Bill Gilley from Landscape Workshop who found it for us and his great crew who put in the new sod, the gravel base for what will be a stepping stone sidewalk, and planted the tree.

The oak tree that fell on the house also ripped up a part of the sidewalk.  We plan to have the stones laid this next Spring if possible.

The front of the house has a new bay window.  A big oak tree fell down across the front of the house crushing the roof and breaking out the window.  The plan is to have a window box , or boxes,under the front windows by next spring.

Our beautiful canna lily.  A gift from our friend Anna Lu.

We have an amazing number of zinnias this year.  All re-seeded from the plants last year.

A favorite mix of yellow and purple coneflowers.

Our rebuilt fence and side garden.  The fig tree , which was damaged recovered nicely and gave us a lot of figs this past summer.  Many hellebores popped back up and even some of the Solomon Seal made it through all the compression of the tree removal equipment coming through this area.  The rocks all had to be found and re-stacked, and the Confederate jasmine is newly planted. The previous fence was covered almost completely over by Carolina jessamine, and was covered by yellow blooms in the early spring.  This is outside our kitchen window.

This is how our garden looked at the beginning of the summer, before the extreme heat and several weeks of drought.The yellow coneflowers have gone to seed, and we now have many black-eyed Susans. 


More updated pictures to follow.