Last week I took a quick trip to central North Carolina to visit my dad, who lives in the charming Fearrington Village planned community. (Pics of the Fearrington House Inn garden coming soon.) Many of his neighbors—and this is a neighborhood of retirees—have opted out of extensive and time-consuming front lawns and instead left their pine tree-shaded lots largely natural and mulched with fallen pine straw, planting some evergreen shrubs and a few flowering perennials by the front door.

That’s an easy-care, lawn-free approach for sure, but Dad and his wife wanted a courtyard garden in which to entertain, with seating and lots of flowers. So they hired a designer and had a wall constructed around half of their front yard, creating enclosure, privacy, and protection from deer, and filled it with a lovely mix of evergreens, flowering trees for shade, flowering shrubs like hydrangeas and roses, and seasonally blooming perennials. This is the view from the front porch; you can glimpse the white stuccoed wall in the background. The steps lead to a small guest house on the left that forms part of the courtyard enclosure. An attached garage forms the right-side wall.

The paver path from the gate simply widens as it approaches the front door, creating inviting patio spaces that open up the garden and keep the extensive plantings from feeling claustrophobic. A wooden bench overlooks a raised-edge pond with goldfish, and just past it you can see a double wrought-iron gate, which they used to leave open during the day. However, Dad recently surprised a deer munching his impatiens up by the front porch in broad daylight, so now they keep the gate closed.

Summer is the best season in the garden, with pink and watermelon-red crepe myrtles in bloom, along with Knock Out roses, guara, coneflowers, and lantana.

The place was swarming with tiger swallowtails.

You couldn’t walk through the garden without them drunkenly flying into you as they fluttered from flower to flower.

A blue dragonfly made a more sedate appearance on a faded lotus flower.

Its coloring and angular lines seemed to echo…

…the dancing man sculpture in the center of the courtyard.

Portulaca flowers in a rusted, white-painted urn—a Victorian touch

Several benches offer places to sit and enjoy the garden.

Hidden in one corner of the courtyard, tucked away behind a tall hedge with an arched doorway cut out of the hedge, is a dining area shaded by a Mustang grape arbor.

Surrounding walls are painted for a burst of color. It was cool enough for us to have dinner here one evening—very pleasant.

Recent rains had filled this empty urn, and confetti-like crepe myrtle blossoms floated on the surface.

Happy Bloom Day, and I hope you enjoyed the tour. I posted about Dad’s garden last summer too, so just click for more pics. For more Bloom Day posts, visit meme hostess Carol at May Dreams Gardens. And remember, it’s Foliage Follow-Up tomorrow!

Update: For a look at the shops, patio gardens, and, yes, Oreo cows of Fearrington Village, click here.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Whew, after all my posts about the cool, mountain gardens of Asheville, it’s time to get back to the hot, humid reality of home. We actually enjoyed a cool front last weekend that brought temps down to the low 90s and kept humidity low. I broke my own rule about not planting after April and replanted the area around my bottle tree (pics to come later). I’ve been watering and weeding my new garden beds. And one of my neighbors is ripping out lawn along the street in order to put in a neat gravel parking strip (shout-out to Tom and Sherry: it looks great!), and another is ripping out old, overgrown foundation plants to put in drought-tolerant salvias and grasses (shout-out to Donna: way to go!). So there’s a lot of gardening excitement here and at the neighbors’ these days.

What’s looking good right now? The raised bed with the ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (A. ovatifolia), whose flukes are now approaching 6 feet in diameter. Natives purple skullcap (Scutellaria wrightii) and winecup (Callirhoe involucrata) continue to cascade and bloom.

‘Peter’s Purple’ monarda is adding violet poufs above the ‘Color Guard’ yuccas.

More yellow is brightening up the pool patio thanks to golden thryallis (Galphimia glauca).

I noticed this dragonfly nymph shell hanging onto the edge of the stock-tank pond, a newly hatched dragonfly perched atop it.

The color of a new-minted copper penny, the dragonfly fluttered to the ground on shiny cellophane wings. A moment later, it was gone.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The final event of last month’s Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling was an afternoon visit to Dragonfly Farms Nursery—”Where Abnormality is the Normality!”—in Kingston, WA, and a fun happy hour on the lawn.

Dragonfly Farms offers not only an enticing selection of plants for sale but beautiful and whimsical display gardens. Consider the gigantic metal orbs pictured at top. (I had a little fun with perspective.)

Their true size is apparent in this photo, with a fellow blogger in the picture for scale. In the foreground stands a temple of love, a classical garden ornament with a beautifully wrought metal dome. The gardens were sunny, despite the gray, drizzly day, with yellow flowers and golden foliage…

…like this…

…and this. Check out the heavy chain archway—how did they do that?

Farm implements stood in for sculpture throughout the gardens.

Plow discs have been made into succulent dishes.

A closer look

And bowls and plates find new life as garden-art flowers.

More china flowers

Seattle likes using decorative glass in the garden.

But mannequin hands? That’s definitely “abnormal.”

A rebar plant support frames this blue-and-yellow combo.

Dahlias

A fly rests on a daisy.

Bright summer color

There’s even a touch of formality with this short allee along a straight, grassy path.

Did you expect to see a palm tree? I didn’t. But its hairy trunk adds inviting texture to the garden.

The flower color is echoed in the stems of this pretty plant.

Purple and gold—lovely

And so is pink and gold

How about gold and white? I don’t love this combo as much, but look—it’s a stock-tank planter!

Colorful succulents in a tiny wheelbarrow

From the other side, with California poppies in the background

Of course Dragonfly Farms would have to carry some of these.

And for those willing to stuff plants in their suitcases, the sales tables beckoned.

After touring the display gardens, we Flingers were treated to a happy hour by sponsor Proven Winners. I neglected to take any pics of the beautiful spread they served us, but I did snap this fashionable trio, who, inspired by the millinery at the recent royal wedding, sported fascinators to the last event of the Fling: Helen of Toronto Gardens, Caroline of The Shovel-Ready Garden, and Vicki of Playin’ Outside. Rock that look, gals!

Take a closer look at Vicki’s regionally appropriate fascinator. The yellow bit represents a Seattle banana slug! And those are fern fronds too. Clever, Vicki.

Soon it was time to say goodbye to a beautiful and welcoming city…

…as well as garden-blogging friends from all over the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. From right to left: Carol of May Dreams Gardens (Indiana), Lisa of Natural Gardening (North Carolina), Kelly of Floradora (northern California), Dee of Red Dirt Ramblings (Oklahoma), and Kathy of Cold Climate Gardening (upstate New York).

My Austin friend Jenny of Rock Rose

Happy gardening and garden-writing, y’all! Next year’s Garden Bloggers Fling will be held in Asheville, North Carolina, organized by Christopher of Outside Clyde (details and dates TBA). I hope to see my fellow bloggers again then.

My thanks to Jim of Compost in My Shoe for permission to repost his photo of our group on the ferry to Bainbridge Island.

For a look back at my post about the tranquil Bloedel Reserve, click here.

All material © 2006-2011 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.