Red Barn, and Blue Sky

Today is a beautiful, warm autumn day.  I was working outside earlier, fine-tuning the plan for the gardens that I am designing toward the back of the property by the barn.  I had my camera with me, as I always do, and I couldn't resist snapping a few photos of the red barn and the beautiful blue sky.

When we first bought this property in 2002, the barn looked like this ... sad and neglected, but restorable.

If you haven't read about our restoration of the barn, click HERE to go to my blog post and see the whole gorey story.  This post still gets hits every week, despite the fact that I wrote it almost two years ago.

My garden plans feature the barn, making it more of a star of the landscape than it already is.  All of this bare dirt in the foreground of this photo, and more to each side and behind me, will be filled with roses.

The gate for the former cattle chute that once ran along the side of the barn will be used to support miniature climbing roses.

Soon, we will have to see about hiring someone to scrape and repaint the metal roof.  The rust you see is only on the surface of the metal.  This roof, because it is strong and water-tight, is probably the only reason that the barn was still standing at all before we restored it.

I can't wait to show you the gardens I'm working on.

I'm racing to get things finished, before winter really arrives.  I'm off to do some more now ... stakes, and string, and marking paint are my main tools today.  Tomorrow?  We'll see how far I get today.

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog.)