After several years of clearing out — digging out fence posts, weeding, and a little bit of planting — we finally have a few things that bloom reliably. Some of the plants from the original garden have survived and even thrived. I brought a few plants down from my previous garden, and have been slowing filling in with others year by year. I have perennials in two places so far — an herb and flower bed across one end of the old vegetable garden, and a fledgling perennial bed where the sumac and trumpetvine used to form a thicket.

I still fight trumpetvine, which has invaded the juniper hedge that runs outside the west fence, but the sumac has been defeated, with only the occasional skinny shoot to mark where it once reigned.

Here are a few things still growing from the original garden, and one from my own original garden, which was up in the foothills.

This is the old lavender plant that we discovered once we took down the fences and cleared out the trash plants. It was fragile at first, but recovered well and has now set seed all around the end of that bed, so there are lots of small lavender plants growing there. I have no idea what variety it is, but in my other herb bed, "Hidcote" is growing very happily.

Several of the roses have recovered and bloom each year. I have no idea what varieties these are, but I always enjoy them.

We found two patches of old-fashioned Shasta Daisies, one near the lavendar plant, and one under a forsythia bush. That one is really crowded and needs to be moved, but both bloom like crazy every summer.

This is daylily "Pleasant Hours", and it was not here originally. It used to live in my garden up in Coal Creek Canyon, and was one of several plants that are still with me from that place. It lives where the sumac thicket was originally.

I'll put pictures of the back herb garden on a separate page.