The front yard

Just beautiful.

Thanks Bernieh, it's one of my favorites. Most everthing is evergreens so it look descent year round. Never would have thought in a million years, with the way I love flowers, that I would perfer a bed that has very little blooms in it....go figure...lol

I think lots of interesting foliage is just as beautiful as beds full of flowers.

~itis longer lasting maybe?sometimes flowers can be very short lived but foliage is almost always interesting.Looks really good with the different shades of green.

I'm starting to lean that way too Bernieh.
Yes Arlene, I do believe that's it. It's eye candy for me even in the dead of winter when I desperate for color.

I really think that this qualifies as a garden ! the term yard does not do it justice :- )

LOL...., thanks Bonkers ! Being it's mostly grass, hubby has always referred to it as our front yard, guess he's ground that thought into me over the last 22 years. I'm slowly but surely trying to change that by adding more flowerbeds.....;-)

I know its a term commonly used but somehow when someone says my yard and then you see all these great flower borders .. do you use the term garden for something else ?

Actually here in rural North Carolina, when someone says the word garden, it almost always refers to a vegetable garden. This is a farming community and most of the old timers here consider a flower garden a frivolous waste of money because it doesn't put any food on the table for the family. You can tell I was made from a different mold that most around here. I'm actually looked at as an oddball....lol.

Thanks for explanation - many returning to veg growing here due to cost esp if grown organically but an oddball ? Probably why we Brits love your garden so much .. :- )

Vegetable gardening has hit an all time high here in my state too Bonkers, due mostly to the money crunch though, we have the highest unemployment rate on the east coast in my city of Hickory, N.C. Alot of other areas across the country are becoming more health conscious and growing organically too.

Not so good here either Flower .. many of us here fuming that the rich caused this and using tax payers money to bail them out.

Mind you we dont seem to get tired of giving our politicians a good kick up the backside .Perhaps it ll motivate the younger ones away from their electronic personal world and protest like we did ... mind didnt get much from that either other than some great music and an infection that seemed to take forever to cure ....

Afraid that sounds ever so similar Bonkers, we may be worlds apart, but we all seem to be in this together, till the bitter end....:-(

Aye better just qualify that and say that irritating infection between your toes when camping in mud for days on end ..what ? Oh some of you Goyers have filthy minds .. great to see the look on my sons face when they re - mix old songs into new versions .

Truly horrified that I was ever young and had some sort of life before he was born ..oh dad you didnt ...

LOL.... I thought that was what we were still here for...., to be an embarrassment to our kids. ! Thrust me, I've gotten REALLY good at it too ...lol

Great fun isnt it ..seeing them squirm with embarrassment makes me worse Shut up Dad .. enough too much information hearing him apologise to his girlfriend for me ...lol

He lives some distance from us now ...

~Jerrie I can't believe you are regarded as oddball~it's your neighbours who are weird!~keep on doing what you doing it's beautiful!~I guess we are all a bit eccentric us brits~totally individual I call it!~your'e very welcome here!

Luckily mine still lives at home, so he doesn't ever catch a break from me.....lol. His replies consist of the ever popular eye roll, while lowering in head in embarrassment, or "Aaah MOM...!" (while shaking his head in disbelief), or "what the hell ",(one of my favorites, know I really got under his skin when I hear this one)... ! Hehehe. I knew being a parent would eventually pay off..lol

Thanks Arlene, next time I start catching more flack over my garden at work, I'm going to print your and Bonkers response and show it to them. Thanks for having my back, I really appreciate it !....:-)

I should have previsit my comments about my son first by saying , he is an adult and he's aways laughing when he makes those remarks. I think he loves my picking on him more than I enjoy doing it....;-)

You re obviously far too good to him Flower ..and can probably cook I think those camping holidays I took him on scarred him ( or should that be scared him ? ) for life lol

LOL..., love your quick wit Bonkers, just one extra "r " in a word can mean the difference between his needing professional help or not...lol. Wish I could think that quick on my feet..:-)

Hehe Flower .. well this will make you laugh .went off on one of those male bonding things and my son wanted to bring a friend trouble was he was asthmatic and mum very anxious .. every time he wheezed off to hospital checking him over etc etc ..

So neurotic making him ten times worse especially when he didnt get his own way ..he would suddenly have difficulty breathing get the picture ?

She gave me a list of instructions that went in the bin by the time we got to the end of the road and told him we were in the woods with no major hospital or mum to call for ..

I did however have an emergency pack with me .. Polos they are sweets here with holes in when he had trouble breathing I told him to suck on them .. the hole in the middle was to ensure he could still breathe whilst sucking on them .Still uses them today and hes in his mid twenties !

OMG.., that IS a cool story, you really did him a big favor in the process. You get a HUGE pat on the back from me Bonkers !
Isn't it amazing, (and scarey), how much our mind can play a role in our physical health.

Wow...great thing you did, Bonkers! both my kids had asthma in their childhood...both grew out of it, thank goodness...I also have it and I can say with absolute certainty that a person can think themselves into a wheezing attack! Anaphalaxis is a different story...but sometimes I just have to think about my breathing and suddenly I feel constricted! Need or habit..hard to tell at times! But giving that young man a chance to cope was a great thing! I had the best laugh over "what the hell", Flrcrazy! I have two grown sons...and the eye-roll, oh Mom! , etc. is all too familiar. Whenever I made an observation about something they were doing or saying based on "when I was your age"..the eyerolls and exclamations started...My oldest son is now on the cusp of his thirties and my how the times have changed! he's actually asking my opinion!...WHAT A SHOCK!

It really is an amazing moment isn't Lori, never thought I'd see that day when he was in his early teens...lol. LUckily for me too, he has already asked me for my opinion on many occasions, and it still never ceases to thrill me...;-). I've been blessed with a wonderful, thoughtful son, whose heart is a mile wide !!!

Children learn by example, Jerrie!

:-))))) You're too kind.