Leaving our garden to a new family

I let it "slip" in my last post that we'll soon be moving from our beloved Kansas in July 2019! We have loved living here in Kansas whether country or city, in small towns and large. But our hearts are torn because all our kids and grandkids live far away.

As hard as it will be to leave our native state, we want to be part of our grandkids' lives, and most of them live in Missouri, so we are packing up and moving to the southeast corner of that beautiful state. Our house has sold to a wonderful family—friends of ours from our church—which makes it so much easier to leave the Kansas house and yard we've enjoyed so much.

We're buying a house in a new town (smaller than Wichita) and we're excited to explore a new kind of gardening. I got to check off the #1 item on my wishlist with this lovely wooded backyard that will soon be ours.

Between the shade and the deer who frequent the neighborhood, I may not be able to get anything to grow, but what a lovely tradeoff. And who knows? I may discover some shade-loving, deer-resistant, mosquito-repelling flowers to fill our pots in this new place. If you garden in Missouri, I'd love to know what you grow in the shade that the deer will leave alone.

Missouri will likely inspire a new garden blog, and of course, I'll post a link here when that happens. We've loved our Kansas prairie gardens and they'll be part of our memories forever, but we're happily moving to the next chapter, which we trust will be every bit as full of love, laughter, and pretty growing things.

Clematis in June are bustin' out all over!

The clematis in the backyard is in full bloom and so pretty this year. We once had a red clematis mixed in with that white, but it seems to have died off. Still, the dark purple Clematis Jackmanii and the white Clematis Huldine are so pretty and give the yard a great summery vibe. We didn't plant nearly as many pots this year since we'll be moving next month (to Missouri!) but these flowering perennials do wonders to brighten up the landscape!

I'm especially pleased that FINALLY, the hellebores seem to be established and are full of blooms!