When I first started, I didn't know really what I was doing.

I just love plants.

My name's Colleen Belk and Brady and I bought this property about 48 years ago, and it's been the happiest time of my life.

Brad and I created these gardens on our own and working for a plant nursery helped because I was given a lot of plants and my paycheck didnt always come home.

Thats really true.

Anyway, it's just been therapy for me, especially the last two years.

I, I really want to go anywhere.

I just want to garden and be here, and that's what I've been doing.

So when I started behind me here is a small round area that was my first garden that I actually did, and then the second garden was in the very front is a small area there and that was my second garden, not big.

So I kind of started small.

And then as time progressed, I started doing rock gardens.

I started doing a lot of rock work and next thing I know I have another garden bed and it just all just keeps coming together.

One thing my husband said to me he says Colleen, you cannot garden in front.

You have to have boundaries.

And I went, okay, honey.

So I built had Hermilio and Danielle build stacked rock walls around the back perimeter from my front to back.

And you know what?

He was right.

But I did slowly start going to the front, but not anywhere else.

It's hard to stop.

I realized that I need to fence my back yard and I have to do that because I'm tired of fighting the deer.

And I love deer, but I'm tired of fighting them.

My very front garden, that's all deer resistant plants.

They don't eat any of those plants.

I have two rose bushes out there, but they they're tall and but they eat the bottom foliage,but they can't reach the And a lot of my friends would give me advice.

And that's where some of these things came about, because they say, oh, Colleen you should put this there and that there.

And I go, okay, I wouldnt have thought of that.

It's hard to judge a plant when it's small, how big it's going to actually get.

And, you know, but you can always dig it up and transplant it and put it somewhere else if you mess up, which I've done occasionally.

Scott Thurmond, he's the one I hired to build this pond for me.

And he had a college student that helped him.

They would walk around all my yard and they walk over my neighbor's yard.

And that's where he got some of the larger boulders.

And he just incorporated it into the back of my yard to make it look natural.

That was so helpful.

And I've enjoyed this pond ever since.

I had crushed granite for a long time.

But I realized that it was dark.

And so I said, I want it brighter.

So that's when I put the pea gravel in.

And it did change the whole the look of my garden.

Every view you walk in my garden is a different view.

It gives you a totally different aspect, the way my garden looks.

My father, when he was gardening, he did everything in lines.

He measured things in line and he came to my yard once and he goes, Colleen, what are you doing?

This is this is just like a I mean, it's like these plants are everywhere.

What's going on?

And I said, Daddy, it's like this is called a cottage garden.

It's like you let let things grow.

And there's a variety of all kinds of things.

I don't want, you know, a long row of marigolds and a long row.

Oh, yeah, I don't want that.

That's that's just not me anymore.

I don't.

I appreciate what you did, Daddy, but I don't do that.

And he goes, Well, it's just beautiful.

Daddy was so funny.

You have your garden and you can be out and it go, You know what?

I think I want to I want to see.

I want a chair there with a bench.

I want that or I'll go to the nursery and I'll buy plants and I really like that plant and I'll come home go where am I going to plant this?

Where can I put this that I can appreciate it.

And that's how I do that that way.

I would go to every nursery in town.

I love nurseries, I love looking at plants.

Other people's enthusiasm is just so contagious, so contagious.

So going to nurseries, I felt that going to Barton Springs, the first one that I went to over off Barton Springs, so I called it, I guess it was a very unusual place.

And I met Conrad and I just just he was just the neatest person ever.

And his wife, I met her and she was behind the desk.

She was a cashier, and she quit her job, her professional job to help Conrad.

And I just they both are just so sweet.

And I had two little boys, you know, four year old, a six year old or younger than that.

They'd run through the nursery and it's like, oh, my gosh, is that okay?

The way.

Oh, sure, they can't he won't get in trouble.

I was president of the Herb Society for two years, and I learned a lot there.

And I'd come talk about herbs with them and do this and that you know.

I came home and asked Brad I asked Brad, you know, what if I worked at the nursery, I really need to do something.

I can't stay home and raise kids.

I'm bored.

I got to do something.

He goes, okay, go for it.

So I did.

That was back when water was really scarce, you know.

And Brad says, Well, let's just get a rain water.

Let's just do a rainwater collection system.

I said, I have no idea, Brad.

He goes, I'm an engineer, Colleen.

I'll figure it out.

People would show up and Brad would just, I got to show you my rainwater collection system.

It's so cool.

Youve got to see what I've done.

I mean, it's the best.

And he he was so excited.

He loved doing that.

And then it would rain.

There's a gauge over there.

When it rained really hard, hed go Colleen, get a glass of wine, let's come sit.

And we'd watch in the rain.

We watched that that bobber go up and its filling the tanks He just thought that was like, Oh my God, this is the coolest thing ever.

I think my succulents thrive because I only use rain water.

What's fun too, is that spring, summer and fall are totally different environment and different color and different plants.

In the winter time though, when I get a hard freeze, it's pretty much my yard is a perennial garden, so a lot of it is just goes away and it's dormant looking and it's kind of sad.

But I had a friend of mine come over and he's I said, Robert, I said, look at this.

There's no plants.

He goes, Colleen, this is the time you see the bones of your garden.

You get to see the rocks, you get to see your garden in a different way.

So I just appreciate that.

And I went, you know, I would have never had thought of that until you told me that.

And so now I do.

It really does mean a lot, but it's not dormant for long, and it's definitely makes me feel good when it's growing and it seeds out places.

I let the seeds pretty much lie where they are.

There's an orchid tree over there right now that little orchid tree that seeded itself out and I'm letting it grow and it's perfect place.

I just like, okay, I like this.

Another fulfilling aspect of my garden is that there are so many different varieties of have and there are insects, but some of the insects are just temporary and that's okay.

But I have birds and I have butterflies and I have these frogs that come sit out and listen to the frogs talk and stuff.

It's really nice.

Then I have the greenhouse down below.

Brad and I built this deck and then the walkway down to the greenhouse, and he helped me build that greenhouse.

And inside that greenhouse I have a mist table that I actually grow plants.

I do cuttings, and then I propagate them and then I put them to four-inch into gallons.

It's just a bit of value to me because if anyone shows up in my yard, I love giving plants away.

The fact that I grew that from cutting it makes me feel even better.

There are times where you've bought a plant and that plant doesn't survive.

It's kind of frustrating to me sometimes.

It used to be more frustrating because I go, Why can't I grow that plant?

But then I realized maybe this isn't the time for that plant to grow here, or that's not the right plant for this location, or I'm overwatering it, or it's getting too much sun or too much shade.

So it's a learning process and you learn from your mistakes and that is just you just do you learn from your mistakes and don't let it don't not in any way keep you from gardening.

Don't feel like you can't do this because you can.

The process of having a garden, the process of it is like, here you've created this environment and you sit in the mornings, I come out with my coffee and I sit here and look at my gardens and I'm it's it's so rewarding.

It's just a reward I get every morning or whenever I come out in my garden.

It's all a part of the whole process of having a garden.

What else is special about my yard is that being in the nursery business, as long as I was, I had so many friends and people that I met that gave me plants.

So I can say you can walk, I can walk in my garden and I can tell you who gave me those plants.

And that's real special to me because they are in my garden with me.

And there's lots of plants here that were given to me.

A lot of times I take plants up to share.

If someone wants them.

A lot of memories, a lot of good memories in my garden.