When I go home to visit my mom in my hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, I go  on what I call my ‘morning coffee tour’.  Instead of making a pot of coffee for just me, I go to a close-by Hardees and get a large coffee.  Then, I take off on my tour.

Huntsville is a beautiful city.  The landscaping is really nice and, in many cases, different from what we are accustomed to seeing here in Virginia.  The areas that I usually cruise are the Twickenham, Five Points, and Blossomwood areas.

This last time, Allison was home with me.  I drove and she snapped photos of landscaping that we like so we could ‘de-construct’ it to apply to our yards.

This one is owned by a landscaper!  The tiered stone levels with the plantings make this just lovely.  This is not a large yard at all.  In this particular neighborhood, the ’50’s red brick ranchers and cottages are being bought and completely re-modeled.  This was a little red brick house with white shutters and a centered front door.  Now look at it!  I am amazed at the creativity some of these folks have.

This is an older home that has more simple shrubbery design with just boxwoods.  But what makes this so great, is the similax vine growing over the entire porch.  Many of the homes have big front porches and most of those have smilax vines growing over them.  The columns, rails and colors are so well chosen.  If you look closely, you will see a lamp on a table.  Many of the porches have lamps on tables along with seating arrangements.  It looks so inviting at night to see the lamp light.
This garden had a great mix of shrubs and perrenials.
We figured out that they plant to the edge which would help  keep weeds at bay.  The bird house gives it some nice height and structure.
And, finally, the symmetry of this starting with the planters at the front door leading to the planters down the steps was just perfect.
Now, can we find the time and ability to execute any of these ideas?  Wishing, hoping, thinking and praying so!!!
                                                        Karan