It has been a busy summer and even though fall has arrived, things are not slowing down! We have picked a freezer full of vegetables and I have canned more tomatoes than I can count! Here are some photos of the garden to give you an idea of what we have been up to. Above is a lousy photo of one of our ginger lilies in bloom-they are so fragrant!
Back in May, I brought home 7 tire planters from the Urban Gardening Festival. This one is full of shade loving plants and they have really filled in, now I need to figure out how to keep it alive over the winter-these plants are not cold hardy!
The other 6 tires look like this and I just replanted them with fall flowers-now they need to fill in. The strawberries have spread like crazy and we are hoping for fruit by the bowl next year. The strawberries have also helped the rhubarb crowns get established and we were able to harvest from each plant.
Gate greeters-love the little faces that greet me as I enter the garden.
The chair planters I made this spring have filled in.
How can you not love sedum? These plants are so hardy and can survive the neglect they sometimes get in this busy garden.
Love the colors and textures they add too and bees love the blossoms.
All of this heat has been just what the peppers needed and they are coming in by the bowl.
Poblanos
Sweet banana
Roselle Hibiscus is one of my favorite plants in the garden. This year I am experimenting with jam. The first batch is in jars but I see room for improvement and will be making more.
Someone asked me why I planted flowers in the garden. The short answer, I like them! But more importantly, so do pollinators and butterflies. This little skipper is drinking from a noodle bean flower.
New to us this year is Cardinal Basil. Those flower heads can get as big as a softball and the leaves are huge as well. The flavor is an intense, classic sweet basil flavor and it has made its way into a lot of tomato sauce this summer!
The change of seasons means a change of plants. Extra Dwarf Pak Choy is actually ready to harvest and we have picked some already.
The last of the canning tomatoes-finally done with it for the year!
Where ever I go in the garden, they watch us work
Lady Bird, our only Americauna hen is a little shy in comparison to the others
The watermelon jungle. First one we picked wasn’t ready and the chickens ended up with a nice treat. This one looks ready to go.
Glass chicken.
The bottle tree.
The flower tower
Cherokee Trail of Tears beans are one of the best heirloom beans. We let a bunch go to seed so we will have plants next year. We can also dry out the seeds and cook them like other dried beans.
Finding an egg in the box is something that never gets old.
We harvested the sweet potatoes and pulled up about 40 pounds from the six plants in the bed. So, there you have it, what we have been up to the last couple of months. Come back and visit soon!
There are so many things to see in the garden, too many to share. This is a glimpse of what is going on now. Enjoy the view!
A few years ago, while we lived in Nashville, we went to an exhibit of Dale Chihuly’s work when it was at The Frist Museum. It was a wonderful show and we really enjoyed looking at the colors and the shapes of the blown glass pieces. At the same time, Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, also in Nashville, was featuring a night time exhibit of additional works, but as luck would have it, we never made it out there. When I went to Atlanta last month, I learned that the 
Using my camera, I took pictures as we walked around the garden and how I wished I could have used my tripod to get better shots! The glass works are pretty amazing in daylight but once the sun sets, the lights used in the displays give the glass a completely different appearance. For one, the colors glow.
If you have ever visited ABG, you are familiar with the raised walkway that takes you high above the gardens. In this area, the view was almost magical.
These white glass pieces almost look like balloons or torpedoes. Because I was using my camera hand-held, it was hard to really get all of the details.
This looked like a giant succulent from above and below, it looked as if it was alive.
The reflection pool really captured the movement of the glass tubes.
While I could see the tiny blue lights up close, they got lost in the distance. The entire area glowed orange, as if a campfire was nearby.
This was one of the exhibits that the camera just couldn’t handle. Called a Fiori Boat, the large structure in the top pool was floating on the surface of the water with the large glass orbs, known as Niijima Floats. In the background is the Earth Goddes Sculpture whose hand forms a waterfall.
Covered in moss and surrounded by water, she was an amazing sight in the dark.
Water lends itself well to the glass and many of the exhibits were in a water setting. To really see the difference in the photos from the camera and my cell phone, compare this shot to the next one.
It would have taken me a lot of time to catch this look with the camera.
Looks like icicles to me.
As we prepared to leave, a final sculpture greeted us near the gift shop. They look like blossoms to me! Truly art imitating life-garden life to be specific. Do yourself a favor, while you can visit during the day, buy a ticket to the show and go after dark. The show closes at the end of the month, hurry, don’t miss it!
When you visit 
The thing that caught my eyes-the ceiling. All hand painted and all original to the house.
The depth of the details, all hand applied and beautiful.
Throughout the house, not a detail was spared. In the parlor next to the front parlor, the details were mostly silver in color. While this light fixture is actually sterling silver, the rest of the details in this room were actually aluminum, a metal which was more precious than platinum in that era.
Of course, my favorite room was the dining room. The table was set for a formal dinner with the best furnishings they had.
The glasses, the china and the flowers…overly ornate, perhaps but I would love to set a table like this!
To preserve the quality of the furnishings, the lighting is low and it was a challenge to take photos with a hand held camera.
Coveting the glasses is not a sin…
And while my camera was challenged, my cell phone was not!
Standing just outside the dining room, this was the overall view of the table as my camera saw it.
and this is what my cellphone saw. Same room, same lighting-cell phone cameras are pretty sophisticated!
One of the main features of the house are the Tiffany stained glass windows in the stair well leading to the second floor. They are 15 feet tall and some of the most beautifully detailed windows I have ever seen.
It was a bright sunny day and the windows glowed with the light.
A visit to the estate just to see the windows is well worth the time!
Some of the few things that did not actually belong to Sallie Dooley are actually clothing such as this dress. While it is from the time period, it was not hers but it is still a stunning example of the era.
In her bedroom, a trunk of ladies gloves and lingerie was on display.
And then there is her bed. She had a love of swans and this is the actual bed she slept in.
Obviously hand carved and painted, it is the thing of fairy tales…
Her bedroom was just one of the many rooms in the house that gave you a real sense of who they were. Please take a trip to 
If you have been visiting this blog, you know that I frequently post photos about the places I visit, especially if they have a garden. In our quest to explore Virginia, my husband and I came across 
Pardon me, I have a thing for reflections and I take photos of them all the time…
As we walked the trail, there was so much to see. The pond, the plants, the trees and the structures. The Dooleys spared nothing and built a beautiful landscape.
We ventured out onto this raised walkway over the pond and quickly saw that the pond is full of fish.
Beautiful Koi to be exact and many of them were well over a foot long.
Dragonflies are abundant here as well, and they came in many colors.
Water lilies; how I wish I had a pond or a water feature in my garden that I could fill with water lilies!
Turtles were also abundant. This is an Eastern Painted Turtle.
So many of the decorations and structures were added by the Dooleys and have managed to stay in tact nearly 90 years after they passed away.
If you take the mansion tour, you will see a photo of this bridge and sculpture in the house. Do yourself a favor, go to the Japanese garden and walk over the bridge, it is beautiful.
The park itself is huge and I suggest you spend the entire day exploring it. We took a quick walk through the wildlife area and I spied this little waterfall in an enclosure with Bald Eagles.
At the top of the hill above the Japanese Garden is 
And an Italian Garden is not complete without a pergola and this one is a welcomed relief from the heat of the sun!
This garden was so colorful and I wanted to walk through it more but the heat…
Another feature, the Italian Gazebo. There is so much to see and it must all be done by walking. Be prepared for that, bring water and wear the right shoes. We will go back, we want to see the seasons and visit some of 
will garden for cake 