The arbor overlooking the well is bursting with hostas. We've had trouble growing Oriental poppies, but these brilliant orange ones have been happy here for a few years.

In late May glorious violet Siberian iris pop up underneath the witch hazel, encircling the well.

This is the first year the trumpet vine has bloomed and was a magnificent sight through July and August. Hummingbirds were always hovering around.

Nothing says 'Spring is here' more than colorful pansies in windowboxes.

The peony patch floats like an island amid a carpet of creeping thyme. In front of the 20-year-old showy peonies are ageratum, red 'Flower Carpet' roses and blue salvia. As the season progresses bee balm, lilies, hollyhocks, anise hyssop and anemonies take over.

The patio bed is a magnet for butterflies and hummingbirds with 'Blue Point' zinnias and salvia 'Black and Blue.' Creeping over the edge are nasturtium and sweet potato vine.

The front border is overlflowing with yarrow, hydrangeas, phlox, daylilies, Oriental lilies and geraniums.

From the front porch you get a birds-eye-view of the late summer front garden with its towering late-season daylily, black-eyed susans and dahlias. Look closely! A tiny deer is grazing across the street.

The front path has been difficult to deal with, but Wave petunias, lamium, eunomous, artemesia and ornamental grass have done well.

Perhaps too well! The grass has become a shaggy mop that will go only where it wants to -- either hanging over the double knockout rose on the right of the mailbox, or directly over the pathway. Never does it stay perfectly centered behind the mailbox where it is supposed to be!

Rose standards, whose pots are overflowing with bluebells, and boxwood flank the step down to the lavender allee. The purple martin bird house stands at the ready at the far end, waiting for its tenants.

Pink Knockout roses line the backs of the lavender beds. On either side of the roses are three-year old apple trees. In the background, evening primrose and peonies float on the bank of thyme.

The lavender allee is flanked by 10 foot raised beds bursting with divinely scented lavender that brushes your legs as you walk by. The bees are so intoxicated that they barely even notice your presence.

Springtime in the medicine wheel, when the land awakens from its slumber, is a welcome site after the long snowy days of winter.

All jonquils are narcissus but not all narcissus are jonquils, or so the saying goes. Here, the medicine wheel is outlined by these slightly smaller, multi-flowering daffodils. Later, daylilies will take their place and conceal the waning jonquil foliage.

This year we decided to turn the medicine wheel into a rose garden. In the center bed are four grandifloras and in each of the quarter beds are floribundas. All the beds were bordered with ageratum.

Even when all of the roses aren't in a bloom cycle, the strong bones of the medicine wheel design of the garden and topiaries and boxwood steal the show. Who needs flowers? Okay, I do!

The rose garden idea was good and worked well, except the grandifloras, which are basically hybrid teas on steroids, fade and suffer the troubles of hybrid teas as summer moves along. In the spring they will be moved to the cutting garden and replaced with red double Knockout roses.

This bouquet is composed of floribunda, hybrid tea, grandiflora and climbing roses.

'The Impressionist' - a vigorous climbing rose is our favorite new rose. As it begins to bloom, every shade of violet, rose, pink, apricot, yellow and orange show in the petals. Once it's fully open it transforms into a luscious golden sunflower yellow with a hint of orange. It is supposed to be strongly fragrant, but the blooms so far have only be mildly so. This is the first year this rose has bloomed and was started from a purchased cutting last summer. The colors are supposed to become richer and mature more towards pumpkin colored during the autumn bloom.

Whether or not the Lady of the Lake who glides across a mist-laden lake to and from Avalon in Arthurian legend was in mind when this rose was named 'Lady of the Mist,' I had to have it for the implied connection. I was looking for a pillar rose for in the 'Magic Garden' and nothing could've been more perfect. This is the first it's bloomed and, although gorgeous, isn't showing its true colors of violet-pink shading to cream and copper in the center. It's not unexpected as this rose is said to change coloring with each new flush.

In late spring globe-shaped alliums magically explode into a riot of purple and violet tiny star-shaped florrets.

Echinacea and black-eyed susans steal the show outside the backdoor in mid to late summer. Soon the echinacea will fade, leaving seed heads ripe for the gold finches to feast on.

'The new fountain in full bloom with bright yellow daylilies, proud hollyhocks and and playful double rudbeckia 'Cherokee Sunset,' keeps the positive chi flowing and negates the strong negative chi generated by a telephone poll outside the front door.