Enjoyed seeing all your photos, Flood. Nice to see the progression of your beds.

Boy, those are two beautiful "reflection" beds of healthy, colorful plants!

What variety of snapdragons are shown near the calendula? Those colors are so pretty and really blend well with the calendula. They look like sherbet!

Looked through your albums...so many kinds of plants and pretty blooms. It's so special to have flowers from your Mom's gardens.

Your WS babies are going to enjoy their sunny beds.

I'm not sure about the snap dragon seeds. I collected them from my Mom's store bought annual dwarfs last year. I love that combo and the pinks and whites I ended up with. She covered the pot hers were in last year and winter sowed the whole thing and has had to thin it out twice already. I already collected some seed from hers to be sure I'll have more next year. I'm loving having sun for my plants, my whole backyard is shaded by an enormous maple and it's babies. I don't usually see all this much color in one place. :)
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Your flowers look so pretty! What a difference a couple months make.

I looked at your backyard photo, and the tree must be your neighbor's? I have an enormous soft maple in my back yard which limits me, too, but do have a long strip at the top of the terrace that gets enough sun.

Your backyard is nice and spacious. Your lot is nice and level, too. I like it!

Hi Kat,

Is that Tithonia? It's really pretty! :)

It is tithonia Neil.
That picture is a bit deceptive. It just cuts out the massive maple. The hanging baskets on the right are actually hanging on it. Also my backyard is a hill. I took the pic looking down from the back of the house. Let me see if I can find a better example.
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That's my son at the bottomish of the hill.
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This is the big maple, you can see the shade it's causing.

Nice pictures.

Here's the trunk of my big maple, and it shades most of the back yard which is nice in a way although limits what I can grow. I love my old tree even though I lose sunny spots. The dappled shade on the grass in the summer is pleasant, and we've had many owls nest in it. I need to at least get it trimmed soon here. I have no idea how old it is. They grow fairly fast but has to be very, very old.

You son is very cute. Here's what you have to look forward to :-).

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Great example of the tree and the boys. We had our tree trimmed up a few years ago. It would touch the roof when it stormed or got iced up. I do appreciate the shade it's so much nicer in the back all summer. Since the trimming we get a lot more light from the sides though and that is lovely.
Our trunk splits into three main sections, after that the tree is at least twice as tall as my house. We finally got the rope swing last year and I love it. Not as much as my little boy though. :) I just wish I didn't have to rake so much or pull up all those baby maples. I had the option to remove the tree and would have to if I wanted to build onto the house but I'm keeping till we leave some day. It's too magnificent a tree. Now it's scraggly children can go, I have a dogwood ready and waiting in a container.

Enjoyed the pictures of flowers and family but OMG! That tree is huge!!

Carrie

I just love those zinnias! Wonderful photos.

Mine split out into 3 large parts, but many years ago, a HUGE one came down in a storm, took out the power to the whole block until 12:00 midnight. The neighbor across the street had his wife on a breathing machine of some kind and had to call the fire dept presumably for a generator.

Somehow when that limb fell, it landed in the alley and extended out to the street, didn't hit the house across the alley or my garage. Because it fell on city property, the gas & elect company cleaned it up. Other times, I've had to do it and once hired someone when it was beastly hot and humid when a lot came down.

It's really a pain worrying about it, but I just hate to lose it.

I've had a couple other bad incidents, and when it was all in grass no trouble with the seedlings but lots all over lately.

In spite of it all, I love my tree and just hate to have the whole thing cut down if I don't have to. One est is $5500 which isn't too bad to take the stump as well, will cost me at least $500 just to have it trimmed.

Oh me.

I had someone do mine on the side for 200. It was totally worth it. We have had lots of falling debris every year One of the branches was so big it dented the gutter but the trim took out more of that than the wind in the past. If you have it done there will be less to worry about.

Thanks for the comments everyone, this is the first time I have ever grown zinnia's and I will be sure to include them from now on. I was worn out from my massive first winter sow and could have done more. We'll see about next year. I will be encouraged now that I have those annual beds for them.
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I had some beautiful, tall cherry something zinnias, but they got mildewed, tends to be damp where I put them. Overall, yours are more compact and prettier. They certainly stand out and look clean.

Sorry I went off on the tree. I have to get someone licensed, bonded and insured for this job. They will need a cable and bucket, work around my neighbor's expensive garage, my garage, another neighbor's property, and power lines. For less complicated trimming, sometimes I can get by for less. I have to get another estimate though.

The older those trees get, the more they drop. There is a younger one down the street, could be a seedling from mine, but I've never seen they had a big problem with it yet.

I've had lots of wood from it over the years but don't like to burn it in the fireplace.

I got creative last year and did this after a wind storm.
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This is from last week. On the left I had ivy leafed blue morning glories earlier in the year. The whole thing is maybe four foot tall.

p.s. My zinnia's are getting mildew even out front now. I angled out the raggedy ones from the picture.

Love the twig tee pee. Very creative
Tammy

I love twig supports, too, have a nice collection of white birch, guess you just tie them together with twine or something strong here and there. I'm curious if you had to anchor that somehow.

I also found a pattern for a little blondish wood or shaven birch twig fence that was attractive. Guess I ought not post the photo because I saved it off a Russian site. It looked so uniform that I couldn't figure out if part of it was photoshopped.

In any case, it essentially consisted of light wood fence posts spaced maybe 3-4' apart, then two horizontals secured to the posts short a short and even distance from top and bottom, then looks like one piece diagonally from NE to SW, and the other NW to SE, making an X. The diagonals were attached somehow where each horizontal attached at the post, can't quite tell from the photo exactly how it was done. Looked like a rustic lattice effect.

Kudos for the creativity and love the vine on it.

I did use twine and that seemed the best. It would have supported itself if it wasn't stuck over a bunch of tree roots and I could have pushed the base farther in. I did end up buying a garden fence stake, about three foot tall and green and twinning it to that. With the mg's on it, the stake doesn't show. I read a nice description of how to attach twigs without the twine though.
You take an axe or saw and cut two v shapes where the pieces will fit together then put one nail through the top and into the second piece. Your description sounds pretty, my logs are too twisty to be uniform enough I think.

Thanks for the info. I found the fence photo back. There was talk about it on some chat groups and somehow I found it then. I had to run several searches to find it again.

Look closely (kind of a small pic). Doesn't it look like the pieces are too uniform? Like maybe it was done in Bryce, still it serves the purpose. The one I saved was just a tiny bit larger. This will have to suffice. I just love the look of it.

I love yours, too, and those morning glories are unique.

Sometimes I get too chatty, but I picked out of the trash a little Indian-style ladder that was strapped together with leather. I'll post that, too. I covered it with chicken wire and grew some sweet peas on it, but it wasn't tall enough.

Anyway my neighbor across the alley is seriously into Southwestern things, has an older house in that style, tiled roof (nice and unusual for here), and whole yard done in that theme. He tried and tried to find a ladder/trellis like that, so I since he did a favor for me, I decided he wants one so bad, he can have mine. Sent my daughter over with it, made him happy.

I took photos of it front and back to show how it is tied and what with. Just to get creative juices flowing. Those leather (can't think of the word for the stuff) thingies, when it gets wet, it dries out and tightens up real snugly. It must have been handcrafted somewhere, and somebody picked it up on a trip maybe.

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