mosaic Monday...garden shots

I finally am seeing COLOR in the garden this week!  In these parts my peonies and lilacs usually bloom around Memorial Day and I am finally enjoying the sweet scent of lilacs in the garden this week.  The first of the garden peonies is in full bloom and I expect the others will soon follow suit as all are sporting huge buds.  The iris are also all blooming.

I planted this perennial poppy 2 years ago and this year was the first to have multiple blossoms. Such a striking color compared to the orange ones I grew up with.

Yarrow, loosestrife and blue flax add more color.

I had several clematis die after our long winter and the remaining ones (even group 2's) have had to regrow from the roots and not previous stems. Dianthus and roses add more pretty pinks to the backyard.

I added 2 coral peonies in the fall of 2011 and this year I have the first buds opening. Gorgeous!

mosaic Monday...

With this unusual Minnesota spring my garden is very "green" looking with a noticeable lack of blooms for the calendar reading June 10th.
 
The last of the tulips are blooming as well as the last fern peony, the alliums are in full blossom. The garden peonies are still budding and I have my first lone clematis. The first iris are starting to open and all should be blooming later this week as well as the shasta daisies.
It seems like it has been gray and raining every other day for a month! This weekend was no exception but we decided to go camping with our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter anyways. Friday was just plain gray but the sun managed to peak out now and then on Saturday. We rented a pontoon on Saturday for an afternoon on the lake. It was awesome to watch 2 bald eagles and several osprey fishing on the small lake with us! One bald eagle caught a fish right behind the parked pontoons as we were getting ready to leave.   Brooklyn enjoyed the ride and even napped an hour on my lap before getting her second wind and trying her own luck at fishing with mommy's pole.  Jeff & I can't remember the last time we were out on a lake so this afternoon was a real treat.
Along with watching the eagles and osprey catching fish we also got to watch several loons fishing near our pontoon. I didn't realize they spent so much time diving under water. There are no photos because I was holding Brooklyn but we also witnessed a pair of loons following a mother duck and her ducklings. The mother duck would fly back to the loons and "fight" them with lots of wing maneuvers and splashing from both birds. One duckling couldn't keep up and we were worried the loon would get him but thanks to the mother duck coming back to the loons several times he managed to rejoin the group.

Since we've had so much rain lately our campsite was soggy so Brooklyn rocked her rain boots all weekend. She even managed to find a mud puddle and do some major splashing in which left her cute yellow pants looking like they were dark brown polka dotted :) Saturday night and Sunday brought much more rain so we had to pack up and leave in pretty hard rain. It was a good thing Grandma wasn't wearing yellow pants or they would have been polka dotted too.
 
More on our camping weekend if you are interested on Jayme's Blog.

Rebecca asked in the Pine Hollow 2013 post the approximate size of the fairy garden..It is about 8' x 10'

Pine Hollow 2013...

Welcome to the spring tour of Pine Hollow, the little fairy village that lives under the Pine Lady in my backyard.   Let's take a walk around the village and see the changes that have been made from last year.  In the photo below we see the back views of the Rose Cottage and the new horse barn added for 2013.
Next up is another view from the edge of the garden showing the "park" portion of the village (explanations to come later in this post).

Moving in for closer views we see that the Rose Cottage is now surrounded by a picket fence, has an expanded patio and our resident dogs have moved into their own dog house.

Jeff & I built a barn for the Hollow's resident horse using scrap lumber and pieces salvaged from a thrift store birdhouse.

To the left of the new barn begins the park portion of the village with lots of spots for rest and reflection including the asian pagoda and black reflecting pool.  Wildlife is frequently spotted here.
 
 

The village is centered around the Pine Lady and a quaint little home in the trunk.  A second story addition is in the early stages and should be finished soon.

Nearby is a gazebo and...
 
several places to sit by the stream to watch the birds and rest.
There is a children's playhouse area in the park near the reflecting pool and
a gazebo and stage for nightly concerts in the park.
The stage is new this year after the initial success of piano concerts in 2012.  :)
 

Also in the park is the glass tea house, a perfect place to relax by the waterfall and also listen to the nearby concerts.
 

 
The pool and hot tub remain a popular place to spend a hot afternoon especially now that they have added a pool pavilion fully stocked with cool drinks and snacks.

Finally we come full circle and end up at the potting house in front of the Rose Cottage.
 

I hope you enjoyed your tour, while I have added a few special fairy garden accents purchased from a nursery this spring the majority of my garden still is composed of thrift store and garage sale finds which are repurposed into garden objects.
You can also see that I live in an area with a high concentration of iron in the water and many things are sporting and "orange" cast to them from frequent waterings from my sprinklers. It's a dead give away to what is new and what has been there. Someday soon I'll do a post on the plants in Pine Hollow, many are perennial but I like to add a few annuals for the "trees" each year. I'm linking up to Fishtail Cottage for her Garden Party #6 (beautiful gardens showcased this week!) and The Magic Onions which is truly a magical place to view fairy gardens for going on 4 years now. After viewing the 2013 entries make sure you click on the Fairy Gardens tab to view gardens from previous years.

First fairy gardens...

I love my fairy garden and am constantly on the lookout at thrift stores, nurseries and garage sales for items to add to Pine Hollow. Like a little girl and her dolls I spent hours setting it all up this spring adding lots of new additions. Here is a sneak peak with a full tour coming tomorrow...

Hershey & Ruger now have their own doghouse...
 
and I discovered a new nursery that had cute little fairy sized bird feeders...is there anything cuter than a fairy sized hummingbird feeder?
 
Of course, Grandma just had to make sure my 2 little Princesses had their own first fairy gardens. Bailey's fairies are blue-eyed beauties and they built their home under the bird bath in Bailey's backyard...
 

and the brown-eyed Princess fairies at Brooklyn's house chose to live under the garage foundation.
 

Rain...