Garden gone wild

Once upon a time long ago my garden was HUGE.. almost 2 acres... neatly tended and loved. It had hundreds of old-fashioned roses and perennials. It was in zone 4 with fierce winters and dry, hot summers. The annual precipitation is only 12-14 " a year and this garden received no supplemental water and survived. It was featured in Better Homes & Gardens and in a book entitled "Beautiful Rose Gardens of America." It consumed my life and one day I quit.. just quit, and let it go wild. Now I like it better than ever before.

Now it is like a secret magical garden with survivors flourishing and peeking out from bushes, weeds, grasses, and trees. Every day is a suprise. This morning I photographed what used to be an arbor now impassable and smothered by an old climber spreading out 20' in all directions,


a foxtail lily almost 6' tall where no human could ever tread,


an old rose and a honeysuckle vine engulfing a gazebo that had collapsed under snow several years ago and the rose behind in covering an allee that the path under has long since disappeared in a dense carpet of wooly thyme,



and last but not least a gorgeous Chinese tree peony blooming gloriously wedged in by an old gallica rose and a mulberry tree on steroids. Every day is an adventure.