Zoom Out, Granny…

  Posted on November 15, 2013 By George Weaver

 83 Comments

A visitor recently said she would like to see a panoramic view of my garden.

I have often thought that my friends here probably wonder what the garden looks like.

If I could persuade Rita to fly over with my camera, I could do it.

The next best thing is to walk around the garden and try to show you what it looks like.

All of the photos of flowers and plants in my previous posts are taken from areas of this garden.

This post is for you, my friends, who have walked with me in the garden.

You who have encouraged me and cheered me on when I thought my images were terrible.

Thank you.  All of you.

(Image # 1)

Standing on the walkway between the porch and the pergola and looking to my left,

I see the left side of the landscape that encloses the porch and the pergola in a kind of circle.

On the other side of the Wax Myrtle and the palms, there is a walking area surrounded on both sides by trees.

(Image #2)

When I zoom out, this is what I see.

The fountain sputtered an died recently.

The motor is kaput waiting for Romero to replace it.

There is a water softener on the water here so I have no idea what the white residue is.

(Image #3)

Miss Lily and family live under the screen windows of the porch on my right.

During the spring and summer, the pergola has a lush cover of Trumpet Vine.

The limbs of the vine hang down to face level and are covered with trumpets.

The pathway leads around the pergola to the other side of the garden.

Straight ahead, it leads to Boy’s house next door.

(Image #4)

The pathway to Boy’s house winds around to his back patio.

Kelli is walking toward us.  She designed both gardens to join her house and mine.

When she showed the CAD design to me, I had no idea what I was looking at.

She designs residential sewage treatment plants for installation

so she is able to visualize such constructs.   I am not.

She knew that a “secret garden” was possible.

She designed the Secret Garden at the old house too.

Simply stated, I owe my Garden and the happiness that surrounds the last years of my life to her.

(Image #5)

If we walk toward the back of the image, we’ll be entering the path to the other side of the garden.

There are few blooming plants or trees this time of year.  Maybe,

I will remember to tell you where the close-up photos of blossoms live.  😉

(Image #7)

Cheeky is sitting in the Wax Myrtle tree that you see in photo #5 above at the corner of the pergola.

All of the photos of Rita or Cheeky in a tree were always in this tree.

Wax Myrtles are very short-lived trees.

Romero is talking about replacing these trees, one on each side of the pergola.

They thrive for six or seven years and then begin to fail.

Kelli chose fast-growing trees because her dad was near the end of his life.

She wanted an instant garden for him to enjoy, and he did.

In this image, I am standing further back towards the area between my house and the fence between our houses.

The area on my left is filled with Pygmy Date palms, Cardboard Palms, Bearded Iris, Morea Iris, a Crepe Myrtle tree and a Giant Philodrendon.

The landscaping there is similar to the landscaping on the other side of the porch.

There are large Pygmy Date Palms on each side of this area.

Romero has removed many of the plants recently including the Japanese Pittosporum along the front edge.

The cardboard palms live here along with the iris that I had so much fun photographing in the spring.

As you can see, the light in South Texas is harsh even in the late afternoon.

There is usually harsh light adjacent to deep shade everywhere.

The porch is shaded all around by trees and plants to block the hot light.

(Image #8)

In the image above (#7), Cheeky is sitting in the Wax Myrtle directly across the lawn from the Fan Palms.

Here we are standing on the rock walkway looking toward the fence behind the pergola.

It has a lattice in front of it with Carolina Jasmine covering it, and it extends the length of the garden.

A twenty-foot Queen Palm tree grows between the large Fan Palms here.

It’s trunk is hidden among the fans, and the long, graceful fronds at the top of the tree are out of the frame.

If you look closely, you can see one arching frond just below the top of the photograph beneath the single fan against the sky.

Sometimes, Rita sits on the tripod that you see in Image #8.

Parrots require sunshine, but they cannot tolerate direct sunlight.

The palms provide filtered light and an interesting place for Rita to hang out.

(Image #9)

We are on the path behind the pergola.

The house is on our left.  This pathway curves around the end of the pergola.

The close-up photos of the “grass lilies” that I post are of lilies that live here behind the pergola.

(Image #10)

It is necessary to bend our heads to walk under the fans at the end of the path.

There are Fan Palms, Crepe Myrtles, Japanese Pittosporum, Foxtail Ferns and the “Yellow Flowes” in this area.

(Image #11)

Here is the other side of the garden hiding the porch and the back of the house.

If we walked further, we’d see the Giant Philodendron whose leaves I photograph so often.

In this area, there are Pygmy Date Palms, Ferns, Hibiscus, Pintas, Morea Iris, and those orange-flowering bushes.

A large Wax Myrtle that grows against the pergola is on our left.

(See the view from the walkway side in # I and #2)

(Image #12)

If we walk to the gate in the background of the image above (#11) and look back toward the path,

We see the last two sections of screen windows on the porch.

If we could walk straight through the Pygmy Date Palm,

We’d end up in the pergola outside the back door.

(Image #13)

I added this orange bush flower to illustrate the way in which many of the subjects in my photographs

are hidden underneath or behind other plants.

This one is hidden behind the Hibiscus in the image above (#12).

There are several of these bushes under the Pygmy Date Palms in that image.

(Image #14)

We have walked in a semi-circle around the pergola, from the back door of the porch to this side of the garden.

The garden was designed with the porch and the adjoining pergola at its center.

The garden encloses both with open areas of lawn on either side.

If we walk away from the Giant Philodendron back toward the pathway, this is what we see.

(Image #15)

There is an oak tree on our left out of the frame.

Two large Fan Palms, a Crepe Myrtle, ferns, Japanese Pittosporum, and the “yellow flower” bush grow here.

If we walk toward the back of the image, the pathway turns to our right

leading back around the pergola to the other side where we started.

(Image #16)

At the end of our walk back toward the beginning of the path,

we walk directly into the palms where we started.

Now that we are at the porch door again,

Cheeky wants to show you what a big boy he is and brave too.

He’s learned to step onto my shaky finger and to hang on fearlessly

although sometimes my whole hand might shake like a tree limb in a stiff breeze!

♥

When you’re in the neighborhood, do drop in for a cup of coffee.

No need to ring the bell.  Come on in through the gate.

You’ll find us on the porch.

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