Here we go . . . we came from here . . .
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/689754/
You Show Me Your Gardens . . . Part II
Is that a hebe I see blooming purple?
murmur that is lovely and alotta work:)
Here is my front yard a few days ago. Iris have given out and the larkspur and hollyhocks are taking over. I always think that hollyhocks is what makes a cottage garden.
cactus ...very lovely
Cactus, all the plants I love and can't grow.
Thanks sticks, and Dale what do ya mean? I have some rudbeckias just out of that shot.
Dale, yes that is a Hebe, but that picture was taken in October of last year. That Hebe suffered some serious damage with our nasty winter and late freezes, but it is making a comeback, bless its heart!! I'm in the process of widening that end of the bed so it's not particularly attractive at the moment, thus the picture from last Fall.
Sticks, you're right - it's a lotta work, but I love it . . . more like play for me, I think!
Cactus & Dale, both of you have lovely gardens - and I too think Hollyhocks are a must for a cottage garden. I grow them, but our weather causes the darn Hollyhock rust pretty badly.
This message was edited May 28, 2007 9:32 PM
Dale you do an amazing job through with what you have! You make a cottage garden out of tropicals. That takes some work! :)
-Joe
To all-
Almost all the plants in my cottage gardens are annuals, some of them don't make it thru the summer and need to be replaced after 3-4 months. I tried Oenothera of various kinds, they flower and then die. If I lived in this climate, in a country that didn't have access to the USA plant industry, I would never be able to grow the plants you see. I have to grow pansy, delphinium etc from starts, we never get cold enough for the seeds to sprout.
One of the beds I am planting now, at Lisa's, has 25 Rudbeckia fulgida and 80 Echinacea plants that I will pull up and toss in the fall. They are perennials for most of you. I would ship them to someone up north, but, they are huge at the end of the season and it would cost a fortune to send full grown plants. I had considered saving them, reselling them the next season, but, my whole plantable space is 15X12 and my landlord would flip if I dug up the lawn. One of my 5 clients has 2 flower beds that are 6X30 and I will be planting about 400 plants in them.
This is not one of my projects>
It's a shame you don't get more use out of the plants you have, still, you have a good eye.
-Joe
I saw this at Epcot, it is interesting to me. Unusual use of color.
dale, love the the 'mosaic' style color play in your yellow border!
So too bad about all the coneflowers going to waste...
This message was edited May 29, 2007 8:03 PM
tabasco
That yellow combo is a traffic island the city of Sarasota staff planted. I just photo this stuff.
This is not my beautiful house and I did not plant these vines, but, I think they are a nice 'cottage' touch for the tropics, Clerodendrum thomason-something-or-other.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/506/index.html
Dale, you do share some wonderful shots. Inspiring! I think that a cottage garden is a style not a location and you achieve the look with tropics where I use plants that love the desert. My UPS guy told me the other day that he loves to deliver here, that my yard is Santa Fe/Cottage. Made my day! LOL!
Interesting about the hollyhocks, I just never knew that they couldn't take humidity. Of course we don't have that here! LOL! Here they grow by abandoned buildings like weeds.
New gardens a-building around this little dog-and-person getaway cottage in the backyard. So far -- passiflora, lamb's ear, impatiens, sweet potato vine, coleus, blue salvia, carolina jessamin and white clover in the little gardens around it.
Impatiens and thyme in the window boxes.
This little cottage gets a whole lot of shade (maybe 1-2 hours of sun per day), so I'm struggling to get the garden right. The carolina jessamin was a mistake -- it's thriving, but won't bloom in that location. I may need to gingerly move it.
This message was edited May 30, 2007 3:52 PM
susanna...that is a lovely little cottage...very nicely done;)
Fburg, that yellow rose is perfect. I envy the folks that can grow roses. They are nothing but trouble here (for the lazy gardener).
Shopping plaza cottage garden, I like it.
I do pretty good with roses.i think I'm really starting to like english roses.I got a david austin english rose called 'bishop's castle' and i'm really impressed.I wan't doing so good during our mini drought and i hadn't mulched it yet.after it rained though its just been awesome.the smell is GREAT and the growth habit seems much more natural than the hybrid teas.i will definetly be getting another english rose next year or three:)
I've enjoyed looking at everyones' gardens.this website really is neato
thomas
Hi Guys,
Is this the place to share garden pictures? Is this only for cottage garden pictures? I remember last year we had several threads where we were all sharing photos of our gardens. Like the whole garden and not just a closeup of a flower. Or am I missing the threads for that this year? And can you point me to them if I'm in the wrong area?
Thank you and I'm enjoying all your beautiful gardens very much!!!! Beautiful!
Sherry
Sherry,
You can post a photo of any garden design you want, we will just pretend it is a cottage garden if we have to.
This is not a cottage garden. Heck, it isn't even my garden.
Nope that one is way too formal for me-definitely not cottage style! Sherry, why not start a new thread with your photos??
Yes, You can start a new threat with your photos and show us what it looks like through the year.
Suzy
Thomas, I am so impressed with your St. Patrick's Rose - I bought three last year after my very Irish aunt passed away March 19th. I put two in big pots for my cousins and one in the ground for me. One of the potted ones didn't make it, the one in the ground is 'so-so' and the other one a pot is doing pretty good. I may have put too much styrofoam in the bottom of the one pot, thus not giving enough soil for good root growth. I'll keep trying, though, as I think it's gorgeous.
Susannah, what an adorable little cottage - I'm afraid I'd be tempted to move in permanently!
Dale, you post some of the most interesting photos ever! While I wouldn't go for a maze (knot garden?) myself, I sure appreciate the planning and upkeep that has gone into that one. I think if I had a large enough piece of land, I would do a small knot garden somewhere - not cottagey per se, but definitely associated with English gardens.
Sherry, if you start a new thread, would you please put a link in this one so we don't miss it? I'm sure we would all love to see your gardens!!!!!!
Thanks for the note on the cottage! I do love it out there. We share it with the dogs -- it's called La Folie des Chiots -- but I do a lot of reading and writing out there, so it's as much me, as them.
Any ideas for the shady garden along the path? Right now the little cottage has coleus, lamb's ear (in a pot), and impatiens (also in pots) around the side. Also a bit of white clover -- and the unfortunate carolina jessamin, which grows rampantly but blooms not at all beneath that shade. This may also be true of the crazy-happy passiflora, which has bloomed little so far this spring (but that may be a weather problem; we've been in cloud cover for the better part of two weeks, and last year I recall it bloomed much more).
Problem is, that little area right around the garden doesn't drain all that well -- so I have the lamb's ear elevated in pots. When I tried to put it in the ground, it didn't like its wet feet. :/ In pots, however, it glows.
Here's the interior of the cottage. I do try to bring the outside in -- I usually have potpourri from the garden in a little dish on the table.
I haven't been over here in the cottage garden forum for a while. I hope you
don't mind me dropping in for a bit. Here's the entrance garden amidst the
stone steps my DH built over the last few years. The johnny jump-ups are all
self sowed.
Tam
Delightful!!!! Have you tried Sweet Woodruff in your shady garden? It seems to do well even when wet - and has a truly sweet fragrance when it blooms. Do Hostas and Astilbe grow in your zone? And most Heuchera do well in shade, too (even if they say "full sun," which I frankly think is a lie!!!).
Tammy, we cross-posted - your garden is divine! I adore the white fence with the blue trim, not to mention the glorious stones.
Suzanna,
We cross posted. That little cottage is so cute! Do you get enough sun
for lobelia cardinalis? It loves wet feet and does do well in part shade.
There are a lot of lovely folliage plants for your conditions - ligularia, rogeristeri.
If you get enough sun, primroses would be very pretty.
Here's my boggy bed by the old spring house on my place. I have primula
japonica & siberian iris plus later in the season, lobelia cardinalis.
Tiarella do well where is not quite so boggy.
Tam
Here's the boggy area by my spring & pond. I get lots of sun here but the
fern & ligularia do well 'cause its so wet there.
Tam
That's lovely, Tammy. Does swamp milkweed do well there? I'm trying to get some going for the monarch attention. :)
I love looking at everyone's cottage garden, it's very inspiring!
I started mine last year, mostly from bare root plants. You'll see from last year's pictures - especially the far-away one - that it was pretty sparse. However this year it's going CRAZY and I'll share new pics in a couple weeks when things start to bloom.
http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/2382/tmp8354os8.jpg
http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/3650/tmp6826rl0.jpg
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/1859/DSCF0072.jpg
I'm also looking for advice. Note the far-away picture; where would a raised bed made of stone look best?
Zeppy - I have milkweed growing in the swampy areas of the fields. I don't
let it grow in my beds - its a pretty good spreader.
Tam
This is a closeup of the area in the image at the start of this thread. Still a long way to go on this expansion - it goes all the way along the one side - but at least I have some of the wall more or less completed, plus have put 10 cubic feet of topsoil in. By the time I'm done I'm sure it will be at least 30 cubic feet used and I only raised it 12" in the area shown - the "raising" tapers to only expansion by the end.
Wow, that's pretty. Thanks for the good tips, also, for shady plants. I'm going to check and see what's available here. I do have some primroses that do well in March or thereabouts, but boy they die back in the high heat of summer. That's okay -- I just wait to love on 'em next spring.
Here's a shot of my work-in-progress!
This is the second summer working on this bed - its the front walk leading from the garage/driveway around to my front door. I've got peonys, iris, columbine and chives flowering right now in the main bed. The red-leaved bush at the far end is a purple leaf sand cherry (Prunus cistena). Up along the front porch there are some hosta, and a baby shrub recently identified as a quince, which may have to move. Just slightly out of shot is the garage window (you can just see the corner of it), which is framed by two trellises with climbing roses making their way up, some more hosta, and some hibiscus. I've saved a large space under the window for a shrub - no idea what kind yet - that whole section is quite empty still.
Unfortunately things look a little scruffy in this picture, to the right you see the tulip & daffodil foliage dying back on both sides of my path. If you look closely, you can also see my weeds popping up between the step-stones. :( Ugh! I'm still trying to figure out what kind of ground cover I want between them - something low and walk-onable.
