My friend Jodi who is the most awesome hairdresser ever, loves to garden like I do.  Today she updated my coif and we happily chatted about plants and more plants.  She asked me what my favorite plants in my garden are. 

Hard to say, I have so many favorites.  But ranking pretty high on the list is my umbrella pine.

I also have a love affair with standards or topiaries.

I have tended this sweet myrtle standard for over 10 years.  On year a huge chunk of it died and for a couple of years after that until it recovered and filled in again in was known as the death star.

New to the garden this year is this rosemary standard with 3 balls of branches.  Rosemary is a great plant for training into a standard, as is sweet myrtle.

We lost a large tree in our yard just a few weeks ago.  It just up and kicked the bucket.  It sat in a corner of my yard behind a piece of brick serpentine fence.  It shaded the entire corner.  Underneath it on top of the fence I have five gorgeous concrete planters that were full with impatients.  Well, now that corner is in full sun, no shade in sight.  So I pulled out the impatients and replanted them with zebra grass and pentas, both of which love full sun.  I’m hoping the height of the zebra grass will give a little privacy until we can get a new tree planted.  A BIG tree.

Planted in front of this brick wall/fence is another of my favorite perennials, bear’s breech.

My garden is one of my favorite places to be, especially early in the morning before it gets hot.  If you enjoy gardens, pop over to see Brenda sometime.  She blogs about her beautiful garden often and always includes wonderful pictures like this:

Doesn’t that bench look like a wonderful place to sit and enjoy her pretty pond!

Well, something else that is an absolute favorite is going to visit my BFF Beth up in Falls Church, VA.  I’m headed that way on Friday because we are going together to the BIG FLEA this weekend!  Woooohoooo!

I’ve got my Junk Posse T-Shirt all ready packed to go.  I consider myself the Mid-Atlantic chapter President and if you want to join in check out Cheryl’s blog for all the info.  While you are over there it’s an absolute must to check out REFUELED, the online magazine about everything crusty and cool for which she is the Features Editor and contributor.

Beth and I are hoping to find some awesome treasures, something that we can use in our creations and for inspirations. 

But I have to tell you, no one scores more prolifically than Niki when she goes to the flea markets in and around Bath, England.  Just go check out her latest flea bag scores and drool.  While she is out finding vintage ribbons, velvets, porcelain, millinery etc. at the sales around here we have something called hillbilly (redneck) windchimes.

originally uploaded by Nika 2000s

So wrong!