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Idyllic! So much interest packed into those borders, and a wonderful setting. Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful peonies, home, and I love the big stones (of course!). I echo the tree peony comments here. I have a 15 year old tree peony (yachiyo-tsubake, my user portrait) and it has been completely undemanding; dug up, put in a holding bed during some construction early on, and then put back. Likes being on the east side of our porch. Some morning sun. The flowers are smaller now that it has easily 100 flowers, but still a stunning spring time treat!

Idyllic garden. This is the time of year that I am late to work everyday because of strolling in the garden. This garden could get me fired because I would never show up! The primitive-looking japanese lantern is amazing.

Beautiful garden and water feature. Great plant choices. Beautiful photos to boot! The stone table fills me with envy! Thanks for sharing.

Really beautiful. Amazing setting and it looks like a garden that will continue to grow in beauty every year!

Visited Kingwood for the first time last year. Very beautiful, well maintained, and the small shop sells a wonderful variety of interesting plants.

Stunning. I'd never want to go inside. Your foliage-focus is very successful. I bet that the garden looks amazing all year round.

Thanks for sending in the before picture. Great choice! I think your foreground garden and beautiful natural backdrop really compliment each other. Neither alone would be as beautiful!

Wonderful, and a very nice read with which to start the morning at work.

Beautiful and picturesque! I am so envious of your garden setting. My garden setting is an alley, power lines and poles, garbage cans and neighbors' garages! Looks like a professional design instead of a filled in pool.

Beautiful. Great stonework. Do you plant anything in or with the creeping phlox? I've always avoided it as a one (short) season plant. But, OH, what a season!!

Wow!

Great garden and hardscaping. My bet that the bananas are Musa basjoo; definitely hardy in Ohio (at least for the last 6 years). I expect my banana plants will be really tall this year with the mild winter we have had. After colder winters they come up from side shoots. After milder winters, last year's "trunks" grow back from the ground as if they had never frozen to the ground.

Beautiful. Maybe a little off topic but I have to comment how beautifully composed each photo is and the great quality of the photos, even at a low resolution. Obviously you have art training or professional photography experience? Thanks for sharing.

Stunning perfection. Wonderful sense of composition and plant selection. Is that awesome stone and copper(?) structure a gate? How does it work? Michelle, thanks for adding the links to the past posts! Incredible!

I, too, was smitten with the blue flowered shrub. It looks like it is Eranthemum nervosum/Eranthemum pulchellum. Now, where to find it and can it take being grown in a container...... :)

What a wonderful setting in which to garden! Lovely. What is the dense conifer behind the tree and bench in the front patio photo?

Great garden in a beautiful setting. Love the waterfall. I am most envious of your woodland garden and ephemerals!

Great plant collection; Beautiful garden. Who needs a yard? (Ok, I know some people do,and when our kids were little we did). Does it give you a little perverse thrill, like it does me, when something dies and you have room to shoe-horn something new in? Kudos to a job well done!

"Gradually filled in"??? This is BEAUTIFULLY composed. Great plant choices.

Amazing! Incredible stonework! I am jealous of everything except the marauding deer!

Stunning! Too often I plant 'groups of one, drifts of two' and miss out on the great visual impact of a stream of plants. The artemisia is out of this world.

My shade loving plants are mostly on the north side of the house, the east side, and the front hill under the cherry tree. The side yard pictured today is a weird "valley" exposure, shaded by houses on either side, with full sun during the middle of the day. (My wife corrected me that we live in an "urban" neighborhood, not "suburban"!) Many thanks to fine gardening and Michelle Gervais for posting my photos on the blog. Too much fun and thanks for all of the comments. I learned that you can turn someone in their 50's into a six-year-old by telling them it is their turn for show-and-tell! I look forward to more inspiration from this blog! Now, what to do with the rest of the back yard? :)

A very Happy Birthday to Michelle! The big pink spikes under the dogwood are from a green-leaved heuchera whose name I have completely lost. I've had various cultivars of heuchera grow poorly or die right next to other varieties that are thriving. When I've had them in too sunny and too dry a spot, they plump up when moved to light shade that is not too dry. I've noticed that they seem to be sensitive to having too much nursery soil left around their roots in my heavy soil, so if I purchase one I virtually bare-root it (along with pretty much anything else I bring home in a pot.) When they get big and woody, I dig them up in Spring or Fall, chop them to pieces and plunk the pieces back in the ground. I mail ordered the double trillium and blood root from England about a decade ago. I'm sure I've seen them offered online here in the states more recently. Regarding Trillium, I am a trillium failure; killed more than have survived. I have T. erectum and T. sessile that are limping along, and poor 'Snowbunting' hasn't bloomed for years. It is multiplying slowly, but staying small. Any Trillium expert advice would be welcome!

I've gotten lots of suggestions about how to avert rock thieves. I like the snake sign idea. The fact of the matter is that I can never leave anything alone and am planning on replacing some of the smaller rocks on the east side with *much* heavier rocks (mjw must have read my mind!) The wrap-around porch is, hands-down, the best feature of the house!

The hills are north facing slopes. The eastern side gets pretty much full sun. The western side with the hostas is under an enormous cherry tree (think light shade, tons of rotting cherries on the ground in late june....) so it gets some morning sun and some evening sun. I added a little store-bought, generic compost. I also turned the sod upside down to increase the organic matter in the soil. Our back yard, except for the gravel garden, has a long, long way to go (I'd give the project a number in the 100's instead of 500's, Michelle!).

The gravel garden is about four years old in the final photo. Regarding kzoocookie's comments about weeds, it seems to me that *everything* loves to self-sow in the pea-gravel mulch that is over the 'dirty' gravel. It is sort of a weeding nightmare....

Well this is certainly fun! I really don't which I love more; rocks or plants. I guess I would say it is the combination of both that I love. My favorite rocks are in the front yard which should be up tomorrow. High Country Gardens has great stuff; always have a wish list to try new things. Unfortunately the ugly gravel parking pad off the alley is what it is; project number 587 on my very own 'this old house'!

One of my favorites. I've had young plants throw up flower scapes almost 6 feet tall. The elegant vase shape of the plants show particularly well when kept divided.

Beautiful, and I'm pretty sure that is a salvia, not a lupine. :)

Flowers don't look quite right to me for Silene acaulis. Is it possible that it is Dianthus simulans? It tends to mound this way. Great photo!