Tiger's Memorial Garden

We needed a way to honor the most awesome cat in the world - Tiger.

After putting our heads together, we decided to plant a bird garden in the back yard, close to where he really enjoyed hanging out and watching the birds.

We've slowly been working on adding elements to his garden.

The first thing we did was make a memorial stone for him.  I had some concrete in the house for making stepping stones from when the kids were little.  (Yes, I do have entirely too much junk in the house.)  I made the stone in a disposable pie pan.

We decided that this garden would go in a corner of the yard that's close to the Elm tree.  The grass kind of curves around the tree, and it seems like a natural place for a garden.  We already have a bird house back there, so that was our starting place.

We then planted a couple of bushes - one holly bush, and one rhododendron.  Both bushes are evergreens.  The holly bush will bring in a lot of birds, and he enjoyed hanging out under the rhododendrons close to the house.

The Rhody is finally looking good.  It had a hard time adapting to the new habitat, and spent a lot of time "weeping".  The ends of the branches are no longer weeping to the ground.  Hopefully, this means it's taken root!

I'm a fan of Hostas.  They are big and leafy, and they are perennials.  I picked up three of the biggest Hostas I could find at the farm stand, and then added in some big bold New Guinea Impatiens in front. Hey, I even did something I haven't done in this house in the 10 years we've been here.  I put down landscape cloth and mulch.  Whoa - this space is looking really nice!

Daughter works at a major big box retailer.  Over the past few weeks, she's been picking up solar garden elements to put in that corner.  We have an LED tree, and LED bird, and an LED color changing ball. 

It's hard to see the twig tree in this picture, it blends in so well.

For now, it's finished.  I have plans to add a bird bath and possibly a place for butterflies to puddle.
It's become a nice, reflective place.  We have plans to add a couple more things back there, but we won't add any more plants until the fall when the weather gets cooler and wetter.

Wow, you can really tell where the landscape cloth went down!  I really need to put more down.