Cottage Garden 2025 Early Summer Update: Annuals, New Perennials, and Fourth Year Status

Welcome to my cottage garden 2025 early summer update! Today I'm sharing annuals I selected for certain landscape beds and my containers, and a few perennial selections I added this past spring. I'll also show updates to perennials added last year, and the overall status of the landscape. It's a post heavy-laden with photos. If you're spending time in air conditioning like I am in this heatwave, this post and a cold drink may be just the entertainment you'd enjoy. 

Summer Tablescape: Stars, Stripes, Checks and Plaids Forever!

 Welcome to Panoply! I've been looking forward to setting another tablescape, and this time it's a great Americana-themed one: Stars, Stripes, Checks and Plaids Forever!

Monday Morning Blooms: Garden to Table

Good morning! It's been a very active past few months in my Zone 7a garden, and today I'm happy to share part of mine with you in a garden to table styling.

I am thrilled to be sharing and celebrating garden blooms with  Pam, Mary, and Lidy in this edition of Monday Morning Blooms.  

Tales of the Traveling Tote #43, Giveaway

 Hello, readers, and welcome to Panoply! Today marks the 43rd instalment of the Tales of the Traveling Tote, can you believe it? It's all about quarterly tales of ladies connecting friendship and stories of our everyday lives via a MacKenzie-Childs tote we all purchased at one time or another. 

Spring 2025 Garden Chores, Blooms

How's your spring gardening going? This is my fourth year of nurturing my Zone 7a cottage garden. 

It wasn't even four hours since I had gotten my summer annuals in the ground when a hailstorm hit on May 5th. - sinko de my annuals. 😢

Spring / Easter Tablescape - Breaking Dormancy

Welcome to my blog, Panoply. Today I have a treat for you - some tablescape inspiration - sure to get you excited for spring! We are finally breaking dormancy here in my Zone 7a region after a fairly brutal winter. It's a bit later than last year's spring, which was more a testament to our revised (warmer) zone rating according to the 2023 USDA plant hardiness zone map. 

In addition to my own spring tablescape, I am hosting a bevy of table artists and their ideas for spring and Easter tablescapes, too. Their direct links will be near the bottom of this post, so be sure to check them out!

Tales of the Traveling Tote #42 and Giveaway

Hello, readers, and welcome to Panoply! Today marks the 42nd instalment of the Tales of the Traveling Tote, can you believe it? It's all about quarterly tales of ladies connecting friendship and stories of our everyday lives via a MacKenzie-Childs tote we all purchased at one time or another. 

Valentine's Day: Birds of a Feather

Hello, welcome to my blog, Panoply! Today I want to share a tablescape idea for Valentine's Day: Birds of a Feather. It doesn't have to pertain to just couples; in fact, it can be a great Galentine's Day celebration. 

I'm also hosting a group of other blogging table enthusiasts who are sharing their ideas for a Valentine's Day table. After all, as the adage goes, "birds of a feather flock together"! Their links are further in this post, so be sure to see them all.

2024 Cottage Garden Recap

Traditionally, I have summarized my blogging journal each year with collage style in a year-end post. It was a tidy way to button up each year, and I would send the year's posts off to be printed in a yearbook fashion. In 2024, Blog2Print ceased operation, and so, too, have the annual yearbooks. It's just as well, I suppose, as my bookshelves were getting a bit crowded for this cottage home. I guess I'll need to backup my blog on a more regular basis.

New year, new tradition. I'm looking back on my Zone 7a garden efforts of 2024, recapping weather and planting notes. My landscape garden is important to me, nurturing my mind, body and spirit.

January

We had a mix of average winter weather and a couple of unseasonably warm days (mid 60s F) by month's end. With just two snow events of 3" and 4" mid-month, these were our most significant accumulations for the entire winter!