We came from here http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/667305/
Here we go!
82º here this afternoon, way to hot!
Bernie
Cottage Gardens # 3
Nice day here - sun has been shining all morning although it is cool -probably about 10C with some ominous clouds in the north. Good day to get all the extension cords up for the xmas lights and some of the lights too.
This message was edited Nov 8, 2006 1:13 PM
Did you transpose a couple letters there, Bernie? Maybe you're really from Lewisville, NM? hahaha
Suzy
Answering a couple of questions from what seems like miles up the thread ...
Illoquin - you can call me anything you like but Kiwi is fine
Jude - wgn is the airport code for Wellington, New Zealand - my home town. Kiwi is 'cos I'm a proud kiwi gal through and through. I was uprooted and transplanted to Northern Cal about 3 years ago.
I'm planning on planting directly behind the fence on the house side. DH thinks it will be about 3 feet wide but little does he know I intend it to be be much bigger than that.. mwah ah ah. I intend on ripping out the grass when he is at work so there will be no going back.
Still waiting on the stump grinder.... :(
This message was edited Nov 8, 2006 6:26 PM
I might have to hire a secretary to keep up with this thread. So many great pictures.
fly_girl......Yes, I made that flower bed and built the arbor in October of '05. It was lawn and I went the Round-Up and rototiller route. I'll post a better photo.
murmur........Thanks! Your lasagna bed looks great!
notmartha.......Your gardens are amazing. Among the best I've ever seen posted on DG.
I'm envious of your greenhouse.
heyjude........No peonies there. Just hollyhocks, daylillies, red hot pokers, daisies, a few roses and a couple of others.
Here are the photos of the bed with the arbor.
Photo 1.............Sept of 05
Photo 2.......early Oct. of 05
early_bloomer
Photo 3.......taken in June of 06. I was really surprised this bed came along as well as it did in such a short time. I think I'm really going to be pleased with it it another year or 2.
early_bloomer
Early_Bloomer, it sure did come along nicely. I'm so impressed! did you put sand or anything under your pathway to stabilize the stones so they don't sink into the soil? that's the kind of path I want in my rose garden. I'm going to put in a rose garden in the spring in addition to planning a cottage garden. the rose garden will also have companion perennials...lavender, lilies, creeping thyme, perennial geranium, lamb's ear, baby's breath, delphinium. so I expect that to be somewhat cottagy as well. just predominantly roses. and clematis with the climbers.
gram
wgnkiwi: why waste effort digging out grass - just build a lasagna bed =- the minimum you will needis lots of newspaper and topsoil although of course you can add lots of other things. By next spring your grass will have disappeard(and so will the paper) andyou will have a nice bed ready to plant.
I had to come in and put on my sleeveless shirt, I was roasting riding on the tractor.
What about fancyvan, she's way up in Canada & had 10C. That's about 50ºF I think.
Cool front coming, we are going to be 50º tomorrow. still warm for Nov.
I have a day of plowing left, then I will get my bulbs planted.
Bernie
Early, that is a wonderful bed. It really came along!
Dori, are you sure you're not Martha? Your beds are beautiful! Even the snow is prettier at your place.
Murmer, Gemini, Rutholive, beautiful beds too.
I know I'm leaving people out. The photos on the last thread just blow me away. I'm so impressed.
I'm one of the dial-ups, so thanks for the new links. With pictures, it almost won't load when it gets long.
For those interested in adding Monkshood, Veshengo has more varities than I knew existed. http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/638461/
I'm on wireless & any time a tread is over 200 replies it gets very slow, worse with lots of pictures.
Now for the dumb question of the day, exactly what is a Cottage Garden ?
Bernie
I don't know that I have ever seen more beautiful gardens than what have shown up on this thread - absolutely inspirational. It's a pleasure to get to know all of you and, of course, to see those of you I already know!!!
Early, that bed did indeed turn out beautifully . . . you are really creative.
Bernie remember no question is dumb! Some answers maybe but no questions!
Anyway re Cottage Garden here is a 'brief' description I posted on one of the earlier threads:
Principles of cottage planting"
Cottage gardens break all the usual rules of garden design, which in any case are only guidelines. In a cottage garden, plants are grown very close together, and they are meant to look as if they were put together at random, without any real plan behind them. But in practise it takes a certain amount of thought to create a garden that looks entirely natural.
Planting
There are several ways you can arrange plants in your border, including
Rows
Rows look very formal. The place they usually look best is along the edge of paving or a path, but you can also use a row of identical plants to edge a cottage garden border as it ‘pulls together’ a randomly generated collection of plants.
Drifts
Drifts make very natural-looking beds. Informal teardrop shapes work best. If you have uneven ground simply outline the high or low lying contours and use those shapes for your drifts. They will automatically look right for the spot. Put your tallest plants in the middle and shortest ones around the edge so that you can look at the drift from any angle and it will still look good.
Random planting
Random planting is typical of old-fashioned cottage gardens, where annuals were left to self-seed inbetween aggressive, spreading perennials. Just weed out what you don’t want. Be careful as the result can either look very natural or a complete mess.
Grouped
Grouped by height, colour or plant type, cottage borders are a lot easier to organise. The usual arrangement is to put the tallest plants at the back and shortest ones at the front, so you can see everything. But why not have the odd island of taller plants in a carpet of shorter flowers so you have to look round them?
The long and the short of cottage garden design is ‘do whatever you think looks best’. Remember if it doesn’t work out, you can always dig plants up and move them. "
carol
Thanks a bunch, fancyvan!
I suppose the antithesis would be a Zen garden... I love both!
I fit right in then!
Thanks,
Bernie
I read your description on another thread, but I'm glad to reread it again. It should be a sticky when we get a forum.
I think Bachelor Buttons are very cottage. What about Beebalm, False Dragonhead, Blue Flax, Pincusion Flower, Sweet Rocket, Peonies, Dianthus and pink double Shirley Poppies?
I forget what all I was going to say from the pictures on the last thread -- the posts seem to scroll by so fast I hardly have time to study one picture when a whole other set comes up, totally different, and yet, totally cottagey.
I'll just start new with the last set of pictures and say Earlybloomer, watching you make your garden is better than watching HGTV -- a lot better!
I recognise all the flowers except the pink/white/red daisy shaped ones....are those all cosmos? If so, do you remember which kind? My soil was too good where I planted the pink & white ones and all I got were six-foot high foliage. Not one flower the entire season! No wait, the soil isn't that good, maybe it could be the variety.
The setting is so pretty. ..I love the fence in the background and the lush green lawn. Always jealous of green-green grass like that!
Suzy
cottage garden-full of everything under the sun!
Ooooh, the space, the Spaaaace!
Not Martha, that is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! (And yes, I saw it in the last thread, but then the conversation had moved on so I didn't comment on it, but my very first thought when I saw it was that I hoped it wasn't close to a highway or there would be accidents galore with all the motorists rubber necking to get a look at it!) Surely you can't keep that all weeded and deadheaded! Staked and pruned? Heck, I wouldn't even want to cut it back in the fall unless I could run a lawnmower over it!
Congratulations! When the CG forum opens up, that gets my vote for the picture on the header!
Suzy
this is April in the garden-when life just starts to return-thanks everyone for all your comments-makes it all worth while
Yes i do all the weeding and deadheading,planting,pollinating daylilies,tilling and everything that has to do with my gardens-psss i have 3 huge daylily beds and 2 big iris beds and then the hostas gardens and.........im a one woman show! lol
I'd love to hear how you built that garden nonmartha? When did you start? Did you do it in
peices or all at once?
Tam
So much to respond to and, unfortunately I have a job!
Great stuff everyone!
I have to comment on Notmartha gardens (and greenhouse) I think you may have the most beautifull gardens I've ever seen!!
I'm reinspired to keep filling and gardening even more of my acre of property.
Dave, I do so agree - I am sure I have never seen the likes of Notmartha's gorgeous gardens . . . how I wish I could visit in person!
And, like you, Dave, I do have a job - albeit part-time. Darn anyway - need to retire.
I have been lurking and greatly enjoying this thread. I figure I'd better put in my two cents worth so the admins will see the interest! I just love the pictures you all have posted.
NotMartha, your garden is truly inspiring.
Murmur, I agree. I really need to retire. Working doesn't leave me near enough time to garden.
Cottage garden plants: antique and climbing roses a must, foxgloves, (which don't grow for me, will take seedpickers advise and try chinese foxglove,) hollyhocks, poppies, love-in-a-mist, wallflowers, flox.
Dawn, between actual gardening and DG, I really just do not have time to work, but for now . . . darn!
does the government have some sort of a gardening subsidy we could apply for instead of working. these 'job' thingies take up way too much time. now I'm doing this instead of lunch (not that it will hurt me to miss a meal LOL).
I vote for notMartha for our first Cottage Gardener of the Month! that's exactly what I think of when I think 'cottage garden'. just right! I hope no one has already asked this...but did you have a plan when you planted all those large areas that you show leading out to your greenhouse? do you have a list of the plants in that area? so beautiful!
gram, I'm sure you could apply for grant money to do a study of how much time is spent online researching which plants and what they require.
Our gov. will give money for any reason, good reason or otherwiase, as a grant so why not lead the bank wagon and get one.
true, jude. and I think I could take a course on how to write grants and get my union to pay for that ;0)
And why you're writing grants just earmark the funds to me and I'll send you photos of my gardens so you two can write a tome about " Funding Surburban Cottage Gardens"! BTW, I'd buy another digital camera with the funds, the best, most expensive one on the market, I'm sure that's justifiable as well! LOL! ;0)
There's the farm program, maybe you can fit in there somehow!
We have some people at our Farmers Market that sell cut flowers, they do fairly well. I don't know if you could sell enough to keep the groceries coming. We sell our Gladious & are going to try some cut flowers next year.
Bernie
This is one of the flower people.
This is our Glads.
absolutely the best of luck to you. they're beautiful! but now that's starting to sound like a job to me LOL. I just wanted to stay home and play in the back yard.
Those are some JUMBO glads, Bernie! I could never pick that much, or that many, of my flowers and sell them to the unworthy public. To get my flowers, they must be one of the chosen -- money will do them no good!
Wellllll, I suppose if it were a lot of money, I could have a booth and make peole fill out an application to buy my flowers. I could have questions like "What is the inside temperature of your house?" Or, "Do you like to put flowers on top of your TV?" And one about whether they would change the water often enough, and trim the ends when they change the water.
LOL! I'd better stay home.
Suzy
Oh Suzy , too funny!
We have a business card with instructions on how to keep them. Don't give out very many, most know how to do it.
The way we sell them, they last a week in a vase. Some people can make it 9 or 10 days.
We sell 6 stems in a bunch for $5. Our biggest day was 105 bunches. Most ran days ran from 35 to 75. That's 3 days a week.
We had our flowers at 5 weddings that we know of. Hard to say how many went that we didn't know about. A number of men would come at least once a week to buy some to take to their wife in a nursing home! Some ladies made regular stops to buy some to take to their church for Sunday services. One lady said their church group takes them to a nursing home after the church service.
Now you can rethink selling your glads.
Bernie
Another patch of glads. This was the last planting. Planted June 19th.
Suzy........those are not cosmos, they are poppies.
early_bloomer
I love glads!! I tried to grow them this year, got lots of greenery but no flowers :-( I will try again in a different spot next year.