How about a stroll through the "park"?

One of our favorite things about the new house is the back yard. It's fenced all around and is so quiet. It's like having our own private park.

To the right side and across the back is a fabulous iron fence with bushes and vines growing all over and around.

I guess we should take this sign down since we don't have a dog, but I kind of like it. It might keep people out of the yard; except the fact that the gate doesn't close all the way. That's probably a dead give away that the coast is clear!

I was pleased to discover that some of the vines are trumpet vines with orange flowers. The orange ones are my favorite! But trumpet vines lose their leaves in the winter, so I guess we'll have to look at the neighbor's pool part of the year.

The center of the yard has a tiered planting bed with a really fun eclectic path winding through it. Wind around and around and end up . . .

. . .at a bridge to nowhere. How cute is that? We need to set a park bench out here.

Here are some samples of the flowers blooming in this raised bed. I wish I could take credit for them, but they were already here. You can tell the landscaping needs a bit of work, but at least we have some blooms to look at!




On the other side of the yard is a wooden fence that has a fairly bare planting bed all along it. I'm hoping to fill it with irises and dailies and daisies and whatever! It does have some pretty crepe myrtle already.

And look at this cool old birdhouse hanging along the fence. I don't have any idea how old it is but it looks like it's been used. I think I'll clean it out before spring and see what happens.

One of the fence boards is twisted a bit and you can look through to the cemetery on the other side of the fence. At first I was creeped out at being next to a cemetery (probably because I'm watching too much Dark Shadows!) but now I don't mind at all. At least we don't have to worry about noise from the neighbors :)

Of course the tour wouldn't be complete without a visit to the hot tub! We probably wouldn't have put in a hot tub on our own, but since it's here, we decided to make the best of it. Great for relaxing at the end of the day with a glass of wine.

Cheers!