My not so Cottage Garden.....

My friend Tracie,  over at Fishtail Cottage 

is having her garden party and I thought I'd join in.  

 Being from South Florida I really don't have a Cottage garden.  It's more tropical, hot and dry.  The soil in my sloping yard is clay and sand.  In the 6 years I've owned this property I've had to replace much of the soil in the garden beds but most of it runs down into the creek and it's become quite a chore each year to add soil.  I have managed to stop the run off from under my deck  that was always a mud puddle  at the last step.  

I added as many stepping stones and pebbles as I could and this past few weeks added 25 little Corsican Mint plants between the stones.  

 Lets hope the little plants take? That would be such a nice scent to step down on. The up coming rainy season will wash it away I'm afraid, but I just don't stop trying. Each year I add a new feature so maybe one day my yard will cooperate.

Being the beginning of Spring, most of my perennials are just coming up and not yet in bloom.  The tropical plants stay green all year and most were pruned last fall so are still small. 
I guess I need to start from the beginning.  This is what the yard looked like when I first moved in.  It was a jungle!

 I hired a man with a machete and he spent two days just cutting down and pulling roots.
 Then one day while driving through a neighborhood I noticed a large pile of brick pavers in the trash.  The homeowners were replacing their driveway and I stopped and asked if I could have the old bricks, and made 5 trips with my trunk loaded, then created garden beds in the yard.  My goal was to plant grass seed only in select areas to help eliminate the water run off.

Below, the trumpet tree is blooming and the bananas are all coming back.

You can see the Lemon Grass right behind the bench.  It's wonderful in cooking!

 The first blooms of  spring.

My garden needs some color so I added some annuals this past week.

Now to wait for mother nature to take over.

I'll be linking up to Tootsie Time at Fertilizer Friday
and
 Fishtail Cottage

Thrifti'n on Thursday 

Stop by these fun blogs and see  how their gardens are coming into bloom  now that spring is in the air.

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Me, I just need to sit back and watch my garden grow. I keep telling myself to not buy any more plants, bulbs, or tubers.  "Let it grow and see what is needed!"

(Like that is going to happen)

  Of course I'll need to keep up with the weeds but that's the fun of having a garden!