Welcome back, dear friends! While I was in California with my husband for my father-in-law’s funeral, we were blessed to visit some of the sweetest gardens I walked by on my morning walks where my mother-in-law lives and also a visit to her neighbors’ gorgeous backyard.
The Tiki Bar garden
This fun garden has been in the works for many years and is the backyard and side garden of neighbors and friends, Gordon and Liz. The family likes to entertain here and just come outside in the evenings for a cold beverage.
I love that Gordon used all kinds of recycled materials in this build!
Their backyard is a fun place to visit and Mr. Ethereal and I enjoyed a family dinner here this evening. Thankfully the sun was going down at 6:00pm and breezes were beginning to blow in from San Francisco Bay over the mountains… It was 97 degrees this day! A perfect time to come sit out back and enjoy the evening.
I would be totally remiss if I didn’t share the family’s cutest and friendliest dog ~ a Havanese mix named Teddy!!
Teddy is the sweetest dog and is just so happy to have visitors come over. He absolutely loves our nephew Corey! Just a love!!!
My favorite part of this garden includes the pond and the plants which surround it… Set into the pond itself is this pretty hibiscus. The small gates help keep Teddy and a relative safe.
This gorgeous kniphofia, or hot poker, is stunning with its ombré flowers…
Definition of kniphofia
1capitalized: a genus of showy African herbs (family Liliaceae) having clumps of long radical leaves and tall scapes of red or yellow drooping flowers with reflexed perianths.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary online
Love the tropical vibe!
And of course some sweet geraniums… Geraniums and pelargoniums grow really, really well in California with its Mediterranean climate. Gordon and Liz keep most of their plants in containers so they can easily move them around when the sun gets too hot in an area.
My Mother-in-law’s front garden
Of all the cleaning we did, taking tons of metal scrap over to the recycler (Mr. E and our son drove it over) and power-washing the house, and sweeping up tons of sharp scrub and coastal live oak leaves…
I took NO photographs of the side yard either before or after. I was just busy getting leaves picked up for my MIL and clearing out old, broken clay pots, scraps and worn out plastic pots for her. She is seriously thinking of selling the house, which is one of the big reasons why I decided to fly home after-all. I knew I could really help her clean.
My big gift was to repot some plants for her small hanging garden out front. 🙂 We had driven over to Lowe’s and I picked up a couple of small bags of potting soil, two 14″ core fiber basket liners, and some Espoma fertilizers for her. I’ve been learning a lot from Garden Answer on organic fertilizers in general so it was nice to introduce these to Gini. 🙂
Then I went-to-town that afternoon soaking the plants really well, recycling the current fiber basket liners to make two good ones, and potting up the four baskets. I meant to take a photograph of the front porch when it was all done, but must have got sidetracked…
Here’s how this little geranium looked beforehand. Hanging on (because geraniums are really drought tolerant) but could use a little TLC. 😉 You can see the redwood tree which Hubby’s grandfather planted when we was young. It is about 50 years old now.
And there we are! Just a special time out in the garden… And a big thank you to Liz and Gordon for having us all over for dinner and for their hospitality!
Happy Sunday, everyone,
Barb 🙂
I know your trip was for sad reasons but this is lovely and it looks like you had some good times and rewarding ones as well. The gardens are both just so charming and I’ll bet all your help was more than appreciated!