Wednesday, August 11, 2010

An outdoor "room"

Yesterday morning I was admiring the decor in one of my outdoor rooms - one little corner of our landscaping, in other words – and decided some of you might like me to share these little spots around our house.

This is a steep little bed along the north side of our house:
That's the door into the side of the garage flanked by the garbage and recycling bins at the top of the stairs. To help obscure that exposed concrete foundation wall, I planted two Sunset maples (a vine maple cultivar). Above them is my sole clematis on a small trellis next to the recycling big (the trellis helps keep the recycling bin from blowing over when we get those stiff ocean breezes). Below the maples are two daylilies that are on hiatus at the moment. And at the very bottom, in a little corner of dirt, are three sweet violet plants given to me by a friend:
They look very happy here, and the concrete and railroad ties will keep them contained.

This is the view from the top of the stairs, looking towards the barn (that light on the house is next to a door into the basement):
I used to go this way to the barn every morning, but now I go down the driveway so I can open the sheep lot gate and the chicken coop door on my way to the barn and sheep fold.

And here is the "decor" that arrested my attention:

That's today's tour from . . .

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oooh- pretty flower! What is it?

Michelle said...

That's my clematis; don't remember the variety name....

Lori Skoog said...

Michelle, I can see why this is one of Sara's favorite blogs. You have a beautiful place and take great photographs. I love the header on your other blog also. Dressage is such a foundation for everything else. Do you ride musical freestyles?

Michelle said...

Welcome, Lori! I recognize your name; must be from visiting the same blogs. :-) I'm getting ready to do a new post on my dressage blog. I have ridden musical freestyles and a Pas De Deux in the past, but not recently. I haven't been able to do much of anything RECENTLY . . . sigh.