Monday Morning Blooms: June Garden Edition

Good Morning, and happy first day of June! Today I am thrilled to be invited to join my gardening and flower therapist friends, Pam, Lidy, and Mary for the June edition of Monday Morning Blooms.

Garden Glows and Woes in Closing Out 2025

Welcome, readers, to my Panoply blog. Before closing out the year 2025, I felt it necessary for my own journaling to capture results of my cottage garden for this fourth year in this Zone 7a cottage garden of mine. I made one post earlier in summer, here, which highlighted most of my flowering shrubs, new perennials and annuals. Perhaps this last week of December is a good time to see some garden photos, while you may be starting to dream and plan your 2026 garden beds.

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. 

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.  

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. 😢

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! 

July Garden Notes and Anecdotes

Here is a picture of our geographic region shown on our local weather Friday, July 26. 2024. My location is in the middle color of the legend for the current drought. I am in growing Zone 7a.

It's been a very dry summer, and the garden - particularly my grass - is suffering. I am suffering (in terms of first world problems).

Welcome to Panoply, where landscape gardening is one of my favorite hobbies. Today I want to share just a few garden notes and anecdotes of my experience this July and late June, since my last garden update, here.

Cottage Garden Update: Third Year

Hello readers, welcome to my blog, Panoply. Today I'm going to virtually walk you through my cottage garden, sharing updates I've made since last fall. This is our third spring in this home. Since we moved here in October 2021, my main focus has been in overhauling an overgrown Zone 7a landscape. For comparison purposes, this May 2023 update is a really good place to see my changes up until this point. Then, in this December 2023 update, I recapped work completed last fall.

Monday Morning Blooms

Hello, and welcome to Panoply on this glorious Monday morning. It is a most special day, as I was invited to join my blogging friends for this June garden edition of Monday Morning Blooms!

State of the Winter Garden

Hello, readers! Today I want to dish on dirt - the dirt of my landscape garden and its winter state. 

We moved here in October 2021, and I've been working on overhauling the landscape ever since. 

Pictured below is what my front beds looked like on January 26, 2024, the second of two really nice, warm days where our temps hit the low 60s (F), and I was out there weeding! This was just after nearly 8" of snow melting.

Panoply 2023: It's a Wrap!

It's time to collage all my blog posts for 2023 as a final step before closing the book, figuratively and literally, on 2023. This blog is primarily my personal journal, and my final step each year is to have all my yearly posts bound in a yearbook style format using Blog2Print (no affiliation, I just love the product and service). 

I only blogged 18 posts (counting this one) in 2023. As I share my current passions in life, it is my hope that there is entertainment and inspiration within these posts for you, my readers. My blog is non-revenue producing by choice.

Shhh...the Garden is Sleeping, Or is It?

This time of year is typically when most landscape gardens are cleaned up and, in many areas, put to bed for winter. Not so fast, Mother Nature says!

July Garden Update and Just Bee-cause Tablescape

Happy July, friends! Today I want to share an update of my garden since my last post with May progress. But first, I also have a sweet little tablescape to share, just bee-cause I've been inspired. My post is heavy with photos, much like the summer air with humidity, so enjoy your air conditioning and the photo journal which follows.

Garden Update: May Progress

About three and a half weeks ago I was excited to have gotten all the lily-of-the-valley dug out of my north garden landscape bed, and contoured a new grass line. It's been a very busy month of May for me in my landscape garden, and I'd love for you to stroll virtually through my recent changes.

May Day! Mayday!

Good May morning, everyone! Today I am going to share my first 2023 update of my landscape garden. This is our second spring in this home. We moved here in October 2021, and my biggest undertakings have been in overhauling the landscaping.

If I never see another lily-of-the-valley it will be too soon. An invasive, poisonous flower which was originally planted in my shade-loving side garden beneath a [now gone] pin oak tree, this 'pretty' little flower has given me much grief over the past two weeks while digging it out. Like my mother always said, pretty is as pretty does. It wasn't pretty. Once they started invading my newly planted grass, it just wasn't pretty.

Panoply 2022: It's a Wrap!

It's time to collage all my blog posts for 2022 as a final step before closing the book, figuratively and literally, on 2022. This blog is primarily my personal journal, and my final step each year is to have all my yearly posts bound in a yearbook style format using Blog2Print (no affiliation, I just love the product and service). 

I only blogged 24 posts (counting this one) in 2022, the same as 2021. Perhaps that's my new norm. It is my hope, though, that there is entertainment and inspiration within these posts for you, my readers. My blog is non-revenue producing by choice.

Cottage Christmas Home Tour 2022

Welcome, readers! My little elf self has been busy over the last two weeks, readying our cottage home for Christmas 2022. Last year we had only been in our home a little over two months so I didn't really pull out many stops for holiday decor. Not this year! Grab your favorite holiday beverage and snack, and be prepared for lots of photos. Please come in! 

Cottage Landscape: One Year Later

Hey, readers, if you like a good before and after, and/or are a garden enthusiast, today's post is for you. It's a bit detailed, so I understand if it makes some of your eyes glaze over. 

Today I'm taking a look back on where our landscape was when we moved into this cottage home in early October 2021, and recapping the landscape transformation since. Here it is in a nutshell:

Mid-Summer Cottage Garden: First Year

Hey everyone! Today I want to share my new-to-me landscape garden as it is fleshing out in July of our first year here in our new cottage home. It was May when I did my last garden post, so go get a drink and get comfortable. Lots of updates and photos ahead.

New Garden Bistro

Summer Vibes in Our Collected Home

Happy summer solstice day for all you in the Northern Hemisphere! Right now I've got summer vibes throughout our home. Today I'm inviting you inside my collected home for a little tour of updates I've made since the first of the year. It's kind of a vintage armchair shopping (hence, collected) / home tour thing, since it's our first summer in this new home. Grab a beverage, and come virtually inside!

Front entry summer 2022