Not My Garden...

..and I am glad it isn't!  Looking after a garden like that would take up my whole life! 

But it was beautiful!  For me, it was the highlight of the Whitby in Bloom Garden Tour today; I only saw 4 of the 11 private gardens that were on offer (am still working on my stamina) but of those four, it was indeed my favourite. The historic 1857 home (with its charming front porch) sits on one acre of landscaped gardens with mature trees and meandering stone paths...it was like a huge park! You would think it would take an army of gardeners to keep it as immaculate as it is, but no...one woman does it on her own!  According to her husband, she works all day every day in that garden from sunrise to sunset!  See what I mean? That would not be a garden for me!  

My next favourite garden (see extra) was also lovely - but again, not for me, but for different reasons.. It was also huge for an urban back yard but nowhere near an acre! It was quite open..you could see it all in one glance..no "rooms" or areas as in the first. Instead, it consisted of an expanse of lawn with perennial beds all along the fenced perimeter. It had a more formal, ordered feel to it than the first garden, and I am not really a formal and ordered person! But it also had an unexpected quirky side to it ..a sense of fun..created by an overabundance of garden ornaments and decorations, in the beds and all over the fences... and I mean all over - everywhere! Who would have thought? Interspersed among those decorations, however, was an interesting collection of plants and shrubs. I actually came away with some photos of some of them ..thinking that they might work in my  humble little back yard garden-in-progress...

Am so pleased that today's outing worked out so well..It was a day of wandering around gardens - but not mine for a change - and I lasted  longer than I thought I would and didn't even need a nap when I got home!