Welcome to Southern Meadows where I write and photograph my zone 7b garden located in rural northeast Georgia about 60 miles outside Atlanta.
I am a Master Gardener and Junior Master Gardener leader. Together, with my husband, who shares my love for the outdoors, we are designing and landscaping our 2 ½ acres into a tranquil and peaceful refuge where we are surrounded by all the plants, trees and shrubs we love while creating a habitat for the local wildlife to call home.To this end we strive to garden naturally through composting, companion planting and the use of natural and organic remedies.
Our style is casual elegance meets naturalistic and bucolic. It is a bit of organized disorder. The majority of the plants are perennial, native, and drought tolerant. Our goal is to work with nature resulting in a garden design that provides year round interest and purpose.
Since 2009 we have established the following gardens:
Woodland sanctuary: under a canopy of oak, hickory, maple, and dogwood trees we have planted a variety of shade loving shrubs and plants that include azaleas, ferns, hosta, hydrangea, hellebore, coral bells to name a few.
Kitchen garden: includes raised beds for a variety of herbs and vegetables. A small orchard produces fruit and berries.
Pollinator gardens: these areas include nectar and host plants for butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, flies, moths and other pollinators that visit.
Blue and White garden: this garden includes a variety of plants whose foliage or blooms are blue and/or white.
Rock garden: this garden is in the early planning stages. The plan is to incorporate large and medium size boulders through out the steep hill and surround them with sun tolerant plants, grasses and herbs.
Rose garden: includes over 50 knock out roses (installed by the builder) that line the driveway.
Azalea gardens: include a plethora of azaleas providing an abundance of color in spring and fall.
Children's garden: this is a whimsical and playful garden in its infancy. Located in a sunny clearing in the woodland garden it is a magical space for our children to be creative, experiment, learn responsibility and patience but most importantly play in the dirt.
