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.

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.

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!

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.

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

My New Garden: Surprises, Delights

Y'all! My landscape garden has been surprising and delighting me at our new home each week since the start of Spring. I want to show you some of the highlights and successes, and even the fails (luckily, not many). I haven't posted a garden update since last fall, so this is a photo heavy post. Grab a drink!

Landscape Makeover at Our New Home

Good morning, readers! What a crazy-busy past several weeks it's been while moving from our loft to our new home. I had several projects going simultaneously, a landscape overhaul one of the most significant, with an interim makeover until I can think through future plans. Below is the before photo of our home from the realtor's listing photo in early spring 2021.

July Garden Memories

Little did I know this time last year that we would be selling our home. In 2004 we did a major renovation to the adjacent lot beside our home, turning it into a landscape garden. Fast forward to 2019: we turned over the keys to the property on June 8, maintaining all the landscape beds and lawn until that time.

Earlier today, Mr. P. & I met with the new owners of our home for a walk through of the property's mechanics. Although we closed in February, the new owners just now took possession from the realtor. They arrived in the country two days ago from Hong Kong (the husband grew up in our area and they are returning to the US permanently). Since June, the lawn had been maintained by our grass service, but the landscape beds had not been tended to at all. The walk through of the landscape garden made me sad, as the weeds took every opportunity to flourish through previous paths.

Garden posts were regularly featured on my blog, and this video tour (below) was filmed by me on July 23, 2018, almost exactly one year ago. Viewing this video this morning was bittersweet.

During today's visit, I couldn't even bear to take one photo. I identified weed from plants purposely planted while walking the grounds, demonstrating how easy most of the weeds would be to pull. The new owner (husband) and I couldn't help ourselves, and started pulling weeds, most of which are taller than most of the planted shrubs in the landscape right now.

I do have plenty of garden photos I took from winter through late spring of the garden, and I busied myself with transplanting a few plants to my sister and daughter before the move. Those will be my new garden escapes.

I'll choose to remember my former garden as it was this time last year. I plan to send this video to the new owners so they can see its beauty and potential too. And if the new owners would like some advice in gussying up their garden, I may volunteer a few hours there, too.

Have you ever gone back to a former home and seen your garden, in particular? How did it make you feel?

Rita C. at Panoply

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Before, After Putting the Garden to Bed

My Zone 7a garden has been put to bed for winter. I have many before and after photos that show one season's growth rate and how it's all pruned and ready for next year's cycle. The before photos are how the garden looked either late September or early October. The fall cleanup began mid-October after our first freeze warning, and was completed (intermittently) over two weeks. 

I'll start with something pretty in the current state of the fall/winter garden, and that's my pansies planted in early October. These replace my summer annuals, give a fresh look now, and winter over to early spring.

A before and after look of the front flower beds is shown next. Notice all the liriope has been buzz cut for winter.

Before and after of the front corner of the landscape pictured below can also be seen in the background in the above collage photo. The little green fans surrounding the concrete pedestal were daylilies received as a giveaway from Mary's blog, planted the first of October. The more noticeable contrast is the snowflake viburnum against the fence (background) are cut back about two feet.  So were the nandina (heavenly bamboo) to the left of the viburnum (not pictured). Again, the liriope is buzzed.

Before and after of the knockout roses in the front landscape beds (below).

Before and after in the courtyard: containers were emptied and cleaned, and the cantilever umbrella (shadow in lower frame) is covered for the winter.

Lavender (and climbing roses) are cut back for winter. They are sheltered in this brick enclosed courtyard.

Back in the main landscape - the west wall - before and after is seen below. Zinnias, salvia, sedum, stray black-eyed Susans and coneflowers all cut down to the ground in most cases (also four o'clocks further right, out of frame).

Here's a before and after view of the eastern landscape wall, standing on the south end, looking north. Big changes: spirea, dwarf butterfly bushes were both hard pruned, Mexican sunflowers and hyacinth bean vine on trellis ripped out (annuals), and knockout roses against wall were pruned.

Below is probably the biggest contrast in before and after: a comparison of the south end of the landscape.

The Otto Luykens are cut back all around.

The western corner perennial hibiscus are cut to the ground, as are the hostas. The hydrangeas got a hard pruning. Only three in the bed and last hard pruned in 2015, they were overgrown. It is likely I will not see blooms next year as a result (next year's buds are mostly on old wood that was cut), but it was due.

A before and after view of the center back area. Again, hydrangeas (including my limelight) were pruned hard, hostas cut to the ground. 

Before and after of the wildest, southeastern corner of the landscape: the tree variety butterfly bushes and spirea are pruned, as are the hostas. You can now see the other two season cherub statues again, as well as another group of Otto Luykens in the back corner.

Cleaning up our landscape takes about 40 man hours, but it makes spring so much easier. I have a longtime gardener friend who helps me in the majority of this effort, but I am right there with him. There was so much debris, and most of it was composted (three trailers full), but several bags (mostly containers and lavender from courtyard) were recycled by the city. Stakes and tools were cleaned, hose carts covered, and all outside water valves were turned off.

If you recall in this post, we had some pretty major summer storm damage to trees on our two riverbank lots across the street from our home. 

Tree removal work began in July, and just ended October 31 due to so many rain delays (river rising and ground saturation). See the diagram below for before and after of the six trees removed.

The remaining trees were limbed up for a clean look after. The trees with undergrowth on the left are the neighbor's.

We also had our magnolia pruned, but it remains incomplete as of this writing. The before and after as it currently looks is below. Our objective is to take the tree away from the gutter and prune about three feet shorter. Remember, we had a growth inhibitor injected earlier in summer to retard future growth.

A couple shots of my last flower bouquets of the season.

The hydrangeas are still full, thanks to dipping them in alum, a great tip I learned from Mary a few years ago.

I ditched the fern and bought a pumpkin for the front porch, and used some magnolia branches to trim it out.

The landscape before and after, standing on the southern end, looking north.

Now all I have to do is rake the leaves from the maple at the utility pole, the Japanese maple and the Kousa dogwoods. Oh yea, and the riverbank sassafras and maple.

I love my garden in all its seasons, even when it's sheared for winter. It's cleared and cleaned, with enough plants for winter interest, and all ready for next spring's growth cycle. If you're not sure of your own agricultural cold hardiness, you can check this USDA map and find yours for optimal gardening. How are your garden cleanup efforts going? Do you do your work in fall or spring? There are advantages / disadvantages to both. I'd love to hear your feedback.

Thanks for your visit today!

Rita C. at Panoply

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Celebrating Fall Outdoors: Porch and Patio

Hello, and welcome to Panoply's celebration of fall outdoors, on both my porch and patio. If you're new to my blog and coming over from Itsy Bits and Pieces, I hope you've enjoyed Linda's vintage style. Here at Panoply, my home and style are mostly traditional but, as antique dealer, I infuse vintage flair with many of my accessories. 

Though we live in West Virginia, a state entirely within the Appalachian Mountain range, one might think the Adirondacks have come to the Appalachians with my fall porch decor.

This year, my double entry doors are decked out with Adirondack baskets filled with fall floral arrangements. Originally a Native American shouldering basket intended for carrying gear and harvested foods, the Adirondack basket has since become a great decor item to the masses. Though my baskets are newer, vintage styles can be found online in various shopping venues.

The floral arrangements in my baskets are my own creations, made with fall floral stem selections from [mostly] the Dollar Tree (no affiliations). I'll share how these were made in another post later this week.

Yellow mums are my go-to choice when it comes to fall potted flowers. I typically purchase in bud stage, and enjoy an extended bloom time that way, and later plant in my landscape garden. Just a few ghost pumpkins were added this year on one side of the porch.

On the opposite side of the porch, my cast iron urn (antique) still holds my summer fern, which remains quite healthy since purchasing in late May. A vintage sundial and orb are situated beside another mum in a concrete pumpkin urn on the porch floor.

With the baskets as the statement pieces on the front porch, I used a light hand for the remaining decor.

Those who are familiar with my blog know that my favorite room in the house is my sunroom. Just outside my sunroom is our courtyard patio, below. With the French doors going to and from the sunroom to the patio, it's simple to pull pillows and throws for outdoor entertaining.

Our teak furniture in the courtyard is nearly 15 years old, but sturdy and strong. We have a bench, two rockers, and a coffee table in this area for cozier gatherings, and a lounge chair and a 13' cantilevered umbrella just beyond. Though I have cushions for each of these pieces of furniture, I've simply pulled some of my favorite pillows and throws to add some traditional fall color. My container plantings are still providing life and color for an added touch. Btw, I spotted my last hummingbird on these containers on September 25th, surely on their southward, migratory journey.

My table decor is a basket tray, full of my patch of various pumpkins. The cloth pumpkins are situated among natural sticks, seed pods, and a freestyle, chalk painted graphic on maple leaf hanger which my niece made for me last year.

On the opposite end of our brick courtyard (enclosed by brick wall) is a grassy area with hot tub. Along the garage wall I have climbing roses and lavender planted at its base.

Along the brick wall just beside the chaise lounge (afternoon shadowplay of that wall is apparent in the photos above) I recently discovered the evidence of a seed pod buffet, no doubt from squirrels. Just a couple weeks prior, there were flower petals all over that same space.

In the photo below, that's the view looking over the wall, into my landscape. You can see the orange flowers on the right in one of my landscape beds. Those are Mexican sunflowers. Evidently the squirrels like them a lot!

The photo below is looking out into my garden from the courtyard wall (I was on a stepstool).

And the shot below is taken just inside the courtyard, looking through the gate which leads to my garden.

The garden flag is all I needed to add to the landscape for decorating for fall. Mother Nature will take care of the rest!

It's been a pleasure having you here at Panoply today to share my celebrating fall on my porch and patio, with a glimpse into my garden. If you'd like to see more of my garden, I'm providing an easy link here, which starts with my most recent posts.

I'd like to thank Amber Ferguson from the blog, Follow the Yellow Brick Home, for organizing today's collection of bloggers sharing their ideas for fall porches and patios. Next on the tour is Laura, from the blog Decor to Adore. I'm sure you'll enjoy her take on fall decor, as well as all the other bloggers' whose links are conveniently provided below. Even if you're already set for fall this year (or chose not to decorate, for whatever reason), it's always fun to have such a variety of great source material all in one place, for pinning inspiration for future ideas. Enjoy!

Also, feel free to browse my other topics on my blog (located at the menu bar at the top of this page or, if on a handheld, scroll to the bottom and click on web version to access menu bar). You may also search with keywords on the side bar, or check out my labels.

Thanks for your visit today. I'd love for you to leave a comment, letting me know you were here today. You are most welcome to return, anytime!

(A special thanks to Richella of Imparting Grace, Grace at Home No. 318 for featuring this post!)

Rita C. at Panoply

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