Around the gardens....

So here's my very unglamorous cottage garden bed all dressed up with mulch. I have yet to figure out a good camera angle to capture the whole thing, so this is a partial view. I haven't moved anything new into the bed, but boy I've got plans!

This is a shot of the far north side of our property & the far edge of the new cottage garden. I've never done ANY landscaping over here, so I think any organized attempt must look better than what was there. We had a lot of rocks in our old garden (thank you, previous homeowners) and we moved them all over here to make a low wall and to support the downspout. The hostas in pots are all "Guacamole" that I dug up when I tore apart this bed. They aren't in any particular spacing here, I mostly just put them where they'd get a lot of shade because I have no water source on that side of the house. (translation: I'm too lazy to drag water over there!)

My 3 water barrels are nicely screened by the perennial sweet pea vine growing on our fence. In the very bottom left corner you can see my lone front yard veggie garden bed. It has peppers and tomatoes in it.

Look! My front yard pepper plant has a pepper on it! (and a lot of weeds.Please ignore the weeds.)

I'll close with something pretty. These coneflowers (variety unknown) are not very reliable in my front yard bed. But this particular blossom is a show stopper--it's easily 4" across! I'm going to attempt to collect seed from this plant. Anyone have any idea why I can't grow echinacea like the rest of the world?