We have been through two projects now, each spread over a year. The first was a photograph of me doing whatever I was doing every day for a year. The we did a picture of Susan from my pictures every day for a year. And now I want to do a new project. A picture from Susan’s Garden every day for a year.
For twenty two years now I have been taking pictures of Susan’s Garden. It is always such a magnificent display that it offers endles beautiful pictures. So that is it. Every day for the next year I will post a picture of Susan’s Garden on Facebook and I will collect all the images here as well.
Day 1 – 12 April 2023 The entrance to the garden from the driveway is wonderful in the summertime!
Here we are on Day 2 of the Susan’s Garden project. In the summer when the yard is in bloom and the garden is full Susan makes the backyard a paradise. I am not a gardener and would not know where to start but she has an instinct for it. This is our backyard last summer.
Today is the 12th of April and it is Day 3 of the current project. Go back and look at the first picture I posted two days ago. I went out into the garden this evening and took the same picture, sort of. That is the garden tonight. Over the coming year we will update this photo about every month to watch progress in the garden.
Day 4. Summer is the best time to walk in Susan’s garden, when the flowers are out.
Day 5. The daffodils are up in the garden and the tulips are getting ready. The show is starting. Last year when the tulips were in bloom I took this picture.
Well, that’s a week of our new project. This is day 7. As we all know, Susan is Italian – so there has to be a classical statue. And there is. I have actually come to like this piece of “art” very much. I spend a lot of time photographing it. And it is surrounded by a flower garden. As you can see here.
Day 6 and it is daisies. The daisies are a wonderful flower. They come back every year and provide a profusion of pretty white blossoms all summer if you keep them watered.
And before I forget, it is day 7 in the Susan’s Garden project and here is today’s picture. Again it is daisies.
A garden is a wonderful thing because everywhere you look it is different and the closer you look the more perfect it becomes. I am not a gardener. I love what Susan does with her little plot of earth. She can make anything grow. Day 9 of the Susan’s Garden Project.
I love the photography of Paulette Tavormina
( https://www.paulettetavormina.com/ ).
Her photographs are so beautifully arranged. Unlike her my pictures in Susan’s garden are not arranged. I simply shoot what I see. But some of these pictures remind me of Paulette’s work. This is Day 10 of the Susan’s Garden project.
It is the 20th of April and that is Day 11 of the Susan’s Garden Project. Susan seems to just throw plants at the garden and yet they always seem to come out in beautiful arrangements of color and texture. It is a mystery to me how she does it.
Day 12. Did you ever look at a sunflower. I mean really look at one. They are magnificent. Every little detail so perfect. These are the one flower that I plant in the garden and it makes Susan so mad because they take up so much space. But I love them.
Day 13. This is not all flowers, you know. Soon we will be having the veggies beginning to sprout upwards. I love the beans. The young plants are so aggressive and yet delicate. But given a chance, they will grow 14 feet high!
Day 14. It is not just the Garden that Susan makes beautiful but all around the house she plants a garden either in the ground or in pots. In the middle of summer the house is a pleasure to walk around it. I can’t do what she does but I do help with the daily watering. Today’s picture is of the stairs leading up to the backyard.
Day 15 and we have been embarked on the Susan’s Garden project for two weeks. Yesterday we looked at the stairs up the side of the house. Today we are looking at the stairs up into the garden itself. Everywhere, if it isn’t vegetables it’s flowers.
April 25th and it is Day 16 of the Susan’s Garden Project. Gardens do not need fancy plants to be beautiful. Susan and I live surrounded by parkland and some of it is very wild land. And it is a source of the common fern which grows in profusion in the shadow of the huge trees. And a few grow in Susan’s Garden.
April 26th and it is Day 17. This morning I went up into the garden to see what I could see. Well, every year, in the same place we get big orange poppies. Susan does not plant them. They just come by themselves. And they have started to grow this year again. It is really marvelous how this works. And this is what they look like this morning.
Day 18. What will the flowers look like when yesterday’s poppy blooms? These are a beautiful flower. I just wish the blossoms were more durable and lasted longer.
Day 19 and the weather is beginning to turn for the better. The sun is coming out! I went up into the garden today and took this picture.
So we are at Day 20 on the 29th of April. Flowers are not the only thing that lives in Susan’s Garden.
Day 21 for the 30th of April. We are still catching up. Every year we have Calla Lilies coming up next to the tool shed. They don’t last very long but while they are here they are beautiful.
Day 22 of the Susan’s Garden Project. I don’t know the names of all of Susan’s flowers which is a shame. But I wouldn’t know where to start to create the garden she plants with such ease.
And today is Day 23, the 2nd of May, and this catches us up to date. Susan occasionally is given miniature roses in a pot as a gift. When the blooms are over she puts them in the garden and most of them do very well last over winter for years. And every year they bloom again.
Susan’s Garden get all kinds of wildlife living there or
passing through. We have hummingbirds who stay with
us year around and we get the odd racoon, skunk or fox
passing through. And Nico saw a bear in our alley last year. And today’s picture is another of the wonderful visitors that come to see Susan. It is It is It is the third of May and Day 24 of the Susan’s Garden project..
May 4th and it is Day 25. This day’s picture is of a pumpkin vine growing amongst the flowers. Susan picks the big yellow flowers, removes the stamens (bitter) and stuffs them with cheese. Then she dips the blossoms in beaten egg and fries them. There is nothing better! The flowers are the best part of any squash plant. Fiori di Zucca. Look it up!
Day 26 of the Susan’s Garden project and I think we should have a picture of the gardener who creates beauty for her family all summer long, not to mention the food she grows.
Day 27 is the 6th of May. Susan’s garden is not all flowers. In the summer and fall we get almost all of our veggies from the garden. Especially lettuce, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, basil, sage, rosemary, squash, and on and on. It’s a wonderful time. Soon I’ll be putting in the bean poles for the young beans to climb.
Day 29 is Rosemary. Susan uses a lot of rosemary and I have developed a real taste for it. This smell of this herb reminds me strongly of Tuscany where it grows everywhere.
Day 28. In late Spring the garden is beginning to fill. Looking along the path there is lettuce on the left. Then straight ahead are the tomatoes, still green but getting big. Beyond them are the beans which are really tall. They will actually go to 14 feet and more. At the end of the walk is the compost pile where we grow the zucchini and squash. And this is only some of it.
Today is the 9th of May and it is Day 30. Yesterday I mentioned rosemary but Susan has many other herbs and spices in the garden. For instance salvia or, as we know it in Canada, sage. In the spring it flowers and is a really beautiful plant. My favorite dish with sage is pasta tossed with sage, butter, and olive oil with a generous amount of good parmigiano. Incredible!
Day 31. What is an Italian Garden without Grapes? Susan’s grapes don’t get the rich Italian sun but they are good and if we have a hot summer they are positively sweet. I make grape jam with them but we get far too many to put them all into jam. Susan dries them and we get very good raisins which Susan bakes into a raisin bread her Mom used to make.
May 12th is Day 32 of the Susan’s Garden project. Yes, we have apples. We have a single tree and we don’t the type of apple but they are firm and sweet and they ‘snap’ when you bite into them.
Day 33 of the Susan’s Garden Project. Susan has several varieties of poppies that come up in her garden. I don’t know their names but I recognize at least three different varieties. They come up by themselves every year, some years lots of them and other years not so many. But they are all welcome.
Day 34. Sometimes when I look at the flowers in the garden I get lost in the colors, shapes and shadows of the leaves and flowers. Every day is different for the camera.
Day 35 Part of Susan’s Garden is an array of hanging baskets around the patio at the back of the house. Sitting outside under these flowers, looking out over the garden, it is a wonder we ever leave this place. It is Day 35.
15th of May and it is Day 36 of the Susan’s Garden Project. We live on a property in a suburb of Vancouver but it is on a cul-de-sac so it is pie shaped with a really large back yard. It always amazes me how magical Susan can make it look. The yard seems so big when she fills it with plants even though it is just a city lot.
Day 38 Day 38 is the 17th of May. The tulips are finished now but they were wonderful again this year.
Day 37 of the Susan’s Garden Project. I love to look at flower blossoms. They are so intricate, have fine fine details and the colors are just perfect. For an instance, this Iris was down amongst the leaves and hardly visible until you got down on your knees and pulled the greens aside.
Day 41 May 20th and it is Day 41. Susan is working every day now planting and watering. Already we can see the plants starting to come. In a few months the garden will look like today’s picture which was taken about three summers ago.
Day 39 The garden is Susan’s passion. Mine is cameras but I try to help in the garden when I can. But she is the boss. I keep the grass cut and I help with the watering which is a big job and very time consuming. But actually I find the watering to be pleasant. It is the 18th of May and it is Day 39.
Day 40 Day 40 and today I went up into the garden and took some pictures. The poppies are out and their orange color is magnificent. It is so sad that they only last a few days in the strong sunlight.
Day 42. Susan’s garden is not large. We live on a single city lot. It is a large lot but still a single lot in a subdivision. So how can I take 365 interesting (hopefully) pictures in such a confined space? That is because the world changes daily with the weather and the seasons. Let’s take a look for the next few days at the statue on the side of the house. Can we make that statue interesting through several photographs?
May 22nd and it is Day 43. So today another picture of the same statue. Do you see? The same but very different.
Day 45 and it is the 24th of May. Still with our Madonna of the flowers, she is on the side of our house and surrounded by flowers in the summer. This area of the garden is incredibly beautiful and it is the source of hundreds of tomatoes that grow in boxes along the wall.
Day 44 and we are still with our garden Madonna of the flowers. Not every day is sunny and warm, especially here in Canada. Sometimes it is positively cold!
Day 46. Often I like to print my images suitable for framing and hanging on the wall. For instance, this is an image of our Madonna that has been printed on artist’s deckle edged watercolor paper. The Madonna is wearing a veil of spider web.
Day 48 and let’s get back to looking at some flowers. A few years ago we had some wonderful Bleeding Hearts in the garden and I got this image.
Many years ago Caesar made a house in the back yard for Nico and Sam. That was at least 20 years ago. For the last 15 years it has been Susan’s tool shed in the garden. This year we decided to touch it up a bit with some paint and window boxes with flowers. Now, this is Susan’s tool shed. Day 50 and it is the 29th of May.
May 31st is Day 52 and I took this picture of Susan in her yard. The roses she grew from a cutting from another plant. She can take pieces of any plant and start a new one.
Day 54 and we are having beans. Susan’s beans are up and on their way to the sky. These are a great plant. You can just sense their love of life and their desire to be better than they are. More people should be like Susan’s beans.
Not every picture is a work of art. Sometimes they just tell you what is happening. Today I went up into the garden and took this picture of beans. Just new beans getting used to the sunlight. In 3 months they will be 14 feet tall! It is the 30th day of May and Day 51 of the Susan’s Garden project.
Day 53 – Before I met Susan I had never had eaten zucchine. That is hard to believe. Lightly steamed, a little butter and olive oil, just marvelous! Susan grows lots of them, more than we can eat.
Day 56
Day 57
Day 55
Day 59
Day 58
Day 60
Day 62
Day 61
Day 63
The Susan’s Garden Project has been broken into Posts covering only two months of the year each. You can jump to other Sections using the buttons bellow. Well, that supposes those pages have been prepared. If they are yet to be done the buttons will do nothing.