Join Me for a Garden Tour [Part 1]

Featuring 10 Film Photos of our Front Garden

As I type this, our garden is slowly settling into fall. We’re in the middle of cutting back plants, adding compost to the soil, and taming unruly stems. One of my favorite activities to do in the fall and winter is to look back at photos from a few months before and remind myself of what the garden looked like in its prime. So today I’d like to share some pictures of our front garden from the summertime. I hope that you find a cozy spot, settle in with a cup of tea or coffee, and join me as we meander around the garden.

The Photographer - Ariel Min

A few months ago my flower friend Jen introduced me to a talented wedding photographer, Ariel Min, who was interested in taking photos of our garden as part of a project she was doing. I was thrilled to have our garden captured in the height of summer when everything looked lush and green. I was blown away by the images she captured and inspired by how beautiful everything looked when taken on her film camera.

I hope you’ll enjoy it as we start this tour series with our front garden. In case you’re new here, our garden is in Southern California (Zone 10B), and my husband and I have been gardening for a few years (major newbies who make quite a few mistakes in the garden). I will be back with Part 2 to share our back garden soon.

Front Garden

As you walk up to our home, you are greeted by a cottage garden:

In this garden are a variety of roses, including “Silver Lining,” “Iceberg,” “All Dressed up,” “Over the Moon,” “Brandy,” “Edith’s Delight,” “Olivia Rose,” and many more. A few of the plants in this garden include jasmine climbing up the trellis on the house, an olive tree providing a bit of shade, foxglove, breath of heaven, daisies, delphinium, scabiosa, dahlias, and camellias lining the house.

On the other side of our driveway is a wall of roses as well. Among this bunch are “Koko Loko,” “State of Grace,” and “Distant Drums.” We’ve been told that the space isn’t quite suitable for roses because they don’t have enough space to grow, but they’ve been doing okay so far. We will see what happens in a couple of years once they mature.

We did have an influx of sawflies on all of our roses this year that we are struggling with as we don’t like to spray if we don’t have to. We are letting nature run its course for now but will be more active on prevention next season.

As you walk up to our front door, on your right you are greeted by shade-tolerant plants including hydrangeas, camellias, fuchsia, and hellebore.

Surrounding the plants are mature Shoestring Acacia trees. These are some of my favorite elements of our garden. But beware, they are quite messy :).

I want to thank Ariel again for taking these stunning photos! See Part 2 of the garden tour here.

I’d love to hear from you: Do you take photos of your garden each season and look back to remind yourself of how it looked?