Adventures of an Underwater Photographer and Scuba Instructor: Rebuilding my yard and putting in flower gardens.

We moved into our home in May of 2004. It is a huge lot with a lot of landscaping and interesting little areas with different types of plants. When we opened the dive store, the lot was mowed but that was about it. We just didn't have time to keep it up. Weeds grew like crazy and the property became an eyesore. I am sure the neighbors thought we were going into foreclosure.

April 2012 I started to bring it back to life, but in the process, started changing what had been there before. Slowly, I have been converting it into a flower haven. While last year was mostly clean up, this year is about planting perennials and attracting hummingbirds.

We love these frogs. They sit in the front garden

Tom and I have removed a lot of old shrubs this year and planted roses, lilies and dahlias. I am currently looking for 3-4 peonies and more perennials to fill up my garden. Later this summer, I plan to till the back area and put in a huge tulip garden for the spring.

Throughout my yard, I am adding different things that our family likes. For example, Tom loves presidential roses and strawberries, so I have planted both. Katie loves lilies so there are lilies, and orange dahlias, which is her favorite color. Our little dog Lucy passed away this spring, and we have a shrub in the back yard we call, "Lucy's bush" because she used to hide under it. Robbie has picked out several flowers this year, and I make a point to get red because that is his favorite color. Our whole family loves tomatoes, so we have a bunch of Early Girl plants in the back, along with sugar snap peas for Katie and Robbie to snack on.

While I love all the flowers in my yard, my first love is my roses. I have climbers, miniatures, shrub, florabunda, 1 grandfloral and my favorite and most beautiful tea roses. If I had to pick a favorite,it is the pale yellow with pink tipped "Peace". I have one thriving in my back yard. I seem to keep adding more, but I am totally out of room for roses.

Hybrid Tea Rose, "Peace"

My inspiration is drawn from several things, but probably the most dominate is from my friend and former mother in law Glenda Zundel. She loved English Gardens and she got a degree 15 years ago from WSU in horticulture. She loved all kinds of gardens and visited them all over the world. She also knew all the birds that would visit her yard and had quite the collection of bird houses in her yard in Wenatchee. Unfortunately, she passed away due to complications from back surgery last October. I think about her often when I am digging in the yard and feel she is helping me. She always had lilac, foxglove and hollyhocks in her yard, and there is a bunch of those in mine as well. I hope, wherever she is now, she can see what I am doing and approves.

My photography goals is to not only document changes each year, but to get different types of photos using my 2 lenses. I want to get some good landscape shots, but looking at macro opportunities as well. These photos were all taken in program mode, using my main lens. As my garden matures, I will post photos using my 50mm lens and manual settings.