V.G.T.. Maryanne in Manheim

The Essential Herbal's Virtual Garden Tour is on the next-to-last stop. These are Maryanne Schwartz' gardens. Maryanne is the lay-out director for the magazine, she makes amazing lampworked glass beads and vessels, and has been the proprietor of a wholesale soap business for nearly 20 years. She is also my sister.

As you come up the driveway, a small raised bed holds a patch of Old Man Artemesia surrounded by snap dragons. Maryanne found this (now fogged) glass ball that seemed to fit in with the gray colors.
One of the big structures to the left - toward the shop is a big pergola that you may recognize from a few years ago when we featured it in the magazine covered with gourds. In the front, we use it for a support for our tomato plants.
And in the back half, it is now a grape arbor:
Just next to the chicken house is a bed of asparagus. It supplied us with fresh spears for over a month this spring. Now it adds some extra cover for the small birds.
There are a number of small raised beds along side the asparagus, this one hosts Bob's cabbage. He made an experimental batch of sauerkraut last yeah with a few heads of cabbage and it was so successful he decided to grow a batch more this year!
On the way across the yard toward the house, on the left is a weeping cherry which is beautiful for that short blooming time in the spring, but underneath it is planted a bunch of stargazer lilies that are just one of the most beautiful, extravagant sights of the year. These are just a few of them.
One of the latest additions to our yard is my new herb garden. We always had them planted here and there throughout the yard and after he cut down an old ornamental crab apple tree, Bob suggested we replace it with a fenced in area with raised beds close to the kitchen door.... Agreeing was easy to that one! It's just getting started here. The fuller herbs are in the bed that is farther away. You can see the comfrey in between the beds - that was there before. There are patio tomatoes growing on the fence to the right but I don't think you can see them.
Just outside the fence is a little place where we always had some miniature roses and iris. I tucked in 3 different kinds of salvias - pineapple, back and blue and bog sage. We'll see how they turn out. That rusty old lantern is something we used to sell at our shop way back when and I still love the way it looks!
On the way into the patio, there is a plant of echinaea - the petals always look droopy, so I assume that is the variety. It is planted lext to a post that supports autumn clematis which will be blooming in its froth of white come late summer.
The back of the house is brick paved and my husband and son built the little pavilion years ago. The wysteria has taken it over, but the shade is so welcome in the summer! It is a lovely spot.
Finally, I took a picture of this, just because I liked the look of it, but a day or so ago, I was showing it to my husband when we noticed a little chipmunk climbing all around it and then disappearing into the little cave it makes with a wooden step to the right. It's his house! We LOVE chipmunks around here, so we were enchanted.
There's much more, but the day I was taking pictures, these are the things that caught my eye.

Hurricane Irene is barreling up the coast today, so I will attempt to get my pictures before noon. Otherwise, I'll just have a really good excuse for the messy gardens. Hmmmm.... what to do?
After that, we'll be working in earnest towards our final issue in our first decade of publication!