Best of the Rest: 2018 Garden Images
Thursday, January 10, 2019 at 5:00PM Every year I like to go back through all the year's garden pictures and choose unused photos from each month. I select only shots I made of my own garden. These are images that never made it into a blog post, for various reasons, but perhaps deserve a look. At the least, they provide a review of the year. So to celebrate the passing of 2018, and to look forward to a new garden year, here are the best of the rest: 2018.
January:
I tucked sprays of Arizona cypress around ornamental kale in a pot to make an attractive winter arrangement.
February:
The small yellow blooms in the photo on the left are forsythia, and the white flowers on the right are from the Serviceberry tree (Amelanchier, also called Juneberry. Its edible berries ripen in June and taste a bit like blueberries. But the birds love them, so I let them have them.
March: 
A fern's newly emerging fiddlehead; ferns have an important presence throughout my garden.
Here is a March view of the walk in front of our house.
April:
Left: Trillium in front of autumn fern. Right: Enkianthus blooms.
May:
Left: Turkey tail fungus with resurrection fern. Right: Virginia sweetspire.
June:
A large gardenia shrub on the edge of the woodland garden fills the area with sweet fragrance each June.
July:
A beautiful heucherella and its bloom.
August: 
Bugs love the hot, stressed-out conditions of August!
September:
Garlic chives, on the left, and spider lilies, on the right, both flourish in September.
In spring 2018, we had to remove the beautiful Japanese maple that grew in front of the house, as ambrosia beetles had killed it. In September we replaced it with 'Rising Sun' redbud, seen here on the left.
October:
A female American robin enjoyed this birdbath. Her mate was nearby in the grass.
November:
The tree in the background with the heart-shaped golden fall foliage is a native redbud.
December:
Once upon a time this Cryptomeria japonica was a living Christmas tree. After the holidays, we planted it in the front yard. Look at it now!
Did you have a favorite month? Happy gardening in 2019!
Reader Comments (16)
All your "best of the rest" photos are wonderful, Deb. My favorite may be that handsome bug! I think this is a wonderful exercise, yielding a great post. Given that I sort my photos into a lot of different folders, a few organized by month but many not, I don't think I could easily pull out what was left on the "cutting room floor." I lost patience just wading through my Monday vase posts in an effort to select my top 10 and ended up scrapping that idea this year.
As you've shown in your gorgeous images of your garden, each month has a beauty of it's own. Thanks for another year of sharing your garden!
I don't have a favorite... I enjoy them all! xo
I don't really have a favourite month. Each is special for its own reasons. Nor do I have a favourite photo from this collection! Each one is exquisite.
Wow, that christmas tree must really be happy in your garden. All you photos are gorgeous Deb. But if I have to choose, I choose fresh cheerful februari.
Great photos!
Lovely to have a look through the year with you, your garden always looks wonderful, no matter what the season is.
A beautiful look back at last year! I love the gardenia and ekianthus blooms. And what a gorgeous outdoor Christmas tree that has turned into! I have Juneberries in my woods, but have yet to manage to get any before the birds. A local farm has actually planted them as a crop for picking, which is pretty novel. I hope you have a beautiful and happy 2019!
I enjoyed all of your photos while sitting here watching big fat flakes of snow coming down. These take my mind to the warmer months of the year with more color and activity outside. I think your front walk is very welcoming. I don't recall seeing a picture of anything like this before. I always think of your garden as a more wooded area, not as clipped.
As to my favorite month here? Or did you mean in your photos?? Here I like about every month except August. August is my least favorite. I could give you a litany of reasons why, not all are garden related but most are.
Where I used to live there are a couple of "christmas trees" growing and they are huge like yours. Maybe I should do this again sometime. It is fun to look back and see them all grown up.
Do you have to bring in that big pot of succulents during winter or is it warm enough where you live for them to live outside? My thought is that you are right on the edge of too cold for them to be outside all year but it is so large.
Outstanding photographs! A nice diversion on a winter day.
Such elegant cloud pruning!
I never do manage topiary - just the basic - keep the paths and views open ish.
Hi everyone! Thanks for stopping by my blog, and as always, I appreciate each comment. Lisa, you asked about my big pot of succulents. You are right in that it is too heavy to bring inside easily. You are also correct that our winters are are a bit too cold (and wet!) for most succulents to survive outside.Therefore, I plant inexpensive succulents in that pot and treat them as annuals. You also mentioned my front walk. I have featured it before, but in the past a large Japanese maple dominated that particular view. Sadly, we had to cut it down because of ambrosia beetles.The front walk looks so bare without it! I hope the 'Rising Sun' redbud I planted to replace it will grow fast!
Best wishes to you all! Deb
More great photos, Deb. I especially loved the elderberry blossoms and the turkey tails. I have toyed with the idea of using turkey tail fungus as the inspiration for a room's color scheme. I found it interesting that your Juneberries are elderberries; ours are Amelanchier.
Hi Jean, you are absolutely right! For some reason I seem to always mistakenly call the serviceberry (Amelanchier) as elderberry. Thanks for calling it to my attention. I have changed it on my blog post. Have you ever had a mental block about something? I have been doing this ever since I planted it, and I am always having to correct myself! Deb
All your photos are lovely! It looks like you had a good year in the garden. I'm looking forward to seeing more in the coming year. Happy New Year!
I love this post, and your idea, but I doubt that I could limit myself to one or two photos per month. And my favorite month is absolutely October. Or September. Or May!