Wednesday Garden Pics: Flower Bed Views

The Garden of Pics of the Day

 are a couple views of my flower beds and a shot of my tomato plant laden with tomatoes.

First up, my front flower bed:

This is what people see when they park in the driveway or pass the house. It's a corner bed, triangle shaped.
You can see my large pot sitting on the stump that once was a pine tree. This is the pot that has the little blue ceramic cat in it and also has the creek stones I brought back from Indiana.
This bed faces east and just gets morning sun.
 I took this photo around noon, which is why it's so bright.

 

Next, a view of the flower beds on the opposite of the driveway from the front bed:

You can see the gravel parking space we built below. In the foreground is one of my Rubeckia plants full of blossoms. My house is on the left, the neighbors on the right. In the background you can see a very tall, leafy plant with grassy pampas behind it. That tall thing is my Hardy Hibiscus, which is just starting to bloom. It's over 6 feet tall. I had to buy an 8ft staking-pole to keep it upright. you can make out a pot, which is full of bulbs and presently a petunias. At the front of this bed there's a blue-green Dusty Miller, grassy Daylily fronds and a light green dwarf shrub.
The shrubbery to right are Japanese privet. My Hostas are visible below the front privet's stems. That bed of Hostas runs along the house between the 2 privets.

The privet in the background is blocking view of my A/C unit.
 On the other side of the privet that hides my A/C is a row of landscape ivy along the house and 3 giant Hosta.
This view is the north side of my yard.

Last, a shot of my tomato plant fat with Roma tomatoes:

Romas are particularly good for making sauce and soup because they are a meatier tomato. Plus I seem to do better raising them then other kinds. I'm very careful to pick nematode resistant and determinate type seeds. (Determinate means the tomato will only grow a certain height; indeterminate means it will keep growing.) I did raise this one from seed. The 3 others like it are still young and growing, not up to bearing yet.

I'm expecting quite a good tomato harvest this year, as I have 4 of these type and container tomato outside the front door. Perhaps I may even be able to can some.

I hedged another Azalea today. 4 down, 7 more to go!  I have to get them all done before the end of June. After that, they set bloom for next season and if you hedge late, you ruin your spring show.

Blueberries are done, blackberries are ripening now.
Strawberries are ever-bearing, but too few really for more then a tasty bite or two as I walk by.
I'm currently trying to encourage new growth to root as they throw out a short runner with new berries on it, which I think are meant to weigh it down so it can root. I'm sort of partially burying those runner a bit to try and help them out. I've been mulching them with my grass cuttings and I've never seen them so happy. In fact, I skipped buying mulch this and just use my own grass cuttings exclusively, since I seem to have a renewable supply.