NxNA Garden Tour - Ivy Garden

For my 5th garden, I headed north to a Fairy Garden.  The Ivy garden is a certified wildlife habitat and Monarch waystation.  It was easy to see why (the birds were constantly flying back and forth in the front yard.  The homeowner said that she smears suet on her tree trunk for the woodpeckers - which I may have to try since the suet feeder tends to be a busy location for the starlings, but having to hold on to something sideways may get them.

Fairy garden 1

The fairy gardens welcome a visitor at the front door.  Iffin you get down on your stomach, you'll be able to see the "Welcome to the fairy garden" welcome sign.

Fairy garden 2

The homeowner has created quite the little vignette with her welcome fairy gardens - she even has a little park bench set up around a Gopher Plant "tree"

Fairy Garden - wider angle

 When one is done looking at the fairy gardens, the front yard (the wildlife habitat) is front and center.  The tree cover creates a nice shady yard (which was well appreciated as it was getting a bit toasty outside).

Front yard certified wildlife habitat.

Looking back to the driveway, one can see that the yard is just jam-packed with flowering natives for the butterflies and birds.

Front yard - a different angle

Of course, getting right into the middle of it allows for some better photos - i.e. they're not all washed out because of sun/shade contrast.  There is a bird bath because one of the requirements to be a certified wildlife habitat is access to water.

Front yard under the trees - gazing ball included.

Heading around to the back yard, one will pass the vertical succulent planter that hides the trash and recycling bins.

A novel concept - and one that looks much nicer than just having the bins sitting out on the driveway.

Upon entering the backyard, I noticed this little terrarium and thought "HEY! That's just like mine!"  Only, of course, mine is used to start seeds instead of being a fairy pondering locale.

The little greenhouse is from Ikea, if you want to go get one for yourself.

 Just past the fairy terrarium, there's a gnome village - way better than your standard garden gnome kitsch, mind you.

The garden gnome village

The gnomes have a swanky little bachelor pad set up right on the local pond.

A close-up of the garden gnome village

 Next to the gnome-land, there was a raised herb garden.  More like an herb table, really.  It's a very intriguing idea and I may have to look into this since I really need to get my herbs out of my garden bed.

Herb "table"

The majority of the backyard is minimally landscaped, there's a dry river bed through the backyard to direct runoff around the house and away from it.  There is a little patch of grass, and, most awesomely, a hammock.  I don't think you realize how badly I want a hammock.  Unfortunately, the only places I have enough room to put a hammock are in full sun...not very ideal.

River bed, grass and hammock.

 Over in the corner, there's another fairy garden - using what appears to be a candle lantern

Ladybug crossing

The entire yard (both front and back) must be very waterwise considering the minimal amount of turf grass and the copious amount of native plants.

A more artsy photo of the dry river bed - vertical shot for things that are "long" - that's why most photos of single people are vertical, while groups of people are horizontal.

 Heading back out to the front of the house, I admired the completely covered in blooms shrimp plant - in full sun, no less.

Shrimp plant, with Turk's cap.

 I ended my visit by heading out to the street to take some shots of what the yard looks like when walking by.

I love the look of the garden gate being open - it looks like it's leading to a secret garden.

I did, however, notice these little nasties on the Spineless Prickly Pear as I was leaving.  Uh-oh.

Agave snout-nosed weevil