Garden Dinner Party

I haven't posted on my blog in a couple of weeks. I have been spending most of my time in my garden getting ready for my garden circles End of the Year Party. This year it was to be at my home, we wanted to include our spouses and I decided to have it an in the Garden Dinner Party. It took place last night and fortunately the stormy weather held off so we could enjoy the evening.

I'll share first some of my garden, I think everyone loved the venue. This is my Herb bed and I like to mix old garden roses, poppy's, amaryllis, pansy's and nasturtiums. I always plant nasturtiums because I love using them in salads with their peppery taste and also like to garnish appetizer trays with them. The herbs that I grow are sage, rosemary, several different kinds of thyme, basil, lavender, salad burnet, marjoram, parsley and oregano. There is something so very therapeutic about going out to the garden to cut herbs to go in a dish that I am preparing.

 This is a bed right across from the one above and here I also grow old garden roses with a few herbs and lavender. The lavender is just beginning to bloom.

As you can see my screened porch is behind this bed and when the roses bloom plus the fragrance from the herbs well what can I say the smell takes your breath away. In this bed I have a plant on a plant stand and in it is an unusual fern-leaf scented geranium. It is an heirloom that dates from the late 1700's from South Africa and was very popular during the Victorian period. It has a balsam fragrance and a delicate pink bloom. Any time I come across an heirloom plant I am immediately attracted to it. 
As you walk further out into my garden I have more roses with lots of perennials and annuals.

It wasn't a bad venue for a Garden Dinner Party.
My garden is so colorful so when planning the tables and centerpieces I chose to go with a more neutral palette. I used round tables with burlap tablecloths. My husband cut down a tree at our farm in N GA for my centerpieces. He routed out the center the size I needed so I could place cylinder glass pieces in them and we just used white hydrangeas and at the bottom finessed Spanish moss. I also used plain white dishes on top of woven dark brown chargers. We had a windy day yesterday and last night so the linen napkins had to sit under the dinner plate.

This was our appetizer table, those hydrangeas were gorgeous.

This was our bar and we served only beer and wine.

I enjoy working in my garden, it is therapy for me and I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my efforts. I also dearly love planning a party as well and I think my guests had a wonderful time.

Thank you for visiting my blog and please do come again. Remember you can click on to any photo to enlarge it.