Robin Ripley’s Incredible Garden

Incredible Garden

The challenge: create a garden that makes a difference in your life and your community, then share it with the readers.

Today we feature the garden of the lovely and talented Robin Ripley (seen above left). She has an astounding 21 acres in Maryland’s Zone 7 to have fun with and has definitely met the “Get It Garden” challenge. Robin’s love for nature and her home is wonderfully evident when you see the below photos of her incredible garden.

Gorgeous wisteria and sweet autumn clematis climb together over the garden gate. The clematis is abloom in drifts of white late summer blooms.

Above is a photo of Robin’s well kept potager garden with a lazily stretching Miss P the cat (otherwise known as the cat who hates baths, but love the garden). About the garden – Robin says, “This is where I do my most intensive gardening, mixing flowers, herbs, vegetables and fruits. In the foreground are Swiss chard, collards and Brussels sprouts along with the last of the bush beans. There is also a raised bed of red sails lettuce and my a-bit-out-of-control herb bed. You can just barely see the raised bed of Jubilee strawberries, which is still producing like mad. Jubilee are daylight neutral strawberries, which produce all summer long. I had strawberries well into October last year.”

Look at Edna – she’s an adorable standard white crested blue chicken and loves wandering through the flowers – just one of an interesting flock of chickens Robin keeps. Her delightful stories about the chickens and their adventures is one of the things that keeps me coming back to her Bumblebee Blog.

One of Robin’s true interests in gardening is creating vegetable gardens that are not just productive, but are visually appealing as well. She feels it brings a special joy to life. In the photo above you can see Robin’s herb beds and a tuteur of scarlet runner beans which she says was taken over by the Malabar spinach which has twined around throughout the beans. Gardening is a constant surprise – well laid plans often go awry – and thanks to Robin’s special magic it looks more beautiful than ever.

Thank you for sharing your delightful garden with the readers Robin – it is a reflection of your soul and your family and an absolute inspiration!

To learn more about the wonderful Robin Ripley and see more of her garden, chickens, and writing, please go to her blog site – www.bumblebeeblog.com. To follow Robin on Twitter, go here – http://twitter.com/RobinRipley. Robin is a national news columnist with http://www.examiner.com/x-346-Gardening-Examiner.

All photos in the above post credited to Robin Ripley.

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