Cottage Garden in the making...

As of May 1 I will have been living here a year, but I was lucky enough start bringing my woody plants to this yard in March of last year. While I've always dreamed of starting with a blank slate, preparing all the beds ahead of time, and having all my design ideas somewhat implemented before putting plants in, it just never happens that way, LOL. So working somewhat backwards, I decided where beds would go and where paths would separate them, and just started planting. Since no one had any idea what the plan in my head looked like, all those shrubs and small trees dotted here and there looked like chaos to the average onlooker, LOL. Finally, after a year of "connecting the dots", a cohesive design is emerging!

This and the above pic are the entry area to the house. The way the house is situated, everyone enters through the side. My dear friend, Jan, lived here and had started gardening in this spot. She passed a year ago this past November, and this area is now a memorial garden to her. She loved purples and blues, and any fragrant flower.

Very pretty, gemini_sage! I think the memorial garden is a wonderful thing. The pulmonaria is so woodsy and pretty. Makes me want some for my own shady spot.

Thanks Kayly! Pulmonaria must be pretty tough, it came through the awful drought last year just fine. I don't know the cultivar of these, but I've enjoyed them so much I like to try other varieties.

My connection got slow earlier and I left the computer for a while.

This lantern was Jan's, and it has a green man face in the design. There are bleeding hearts and lamium she had planted there behind it.

These Phlox stolonifera 'Sherwood Purple' are in full bloom now. They're in the Jan Garden too, several of which are under a Blue Rambler 'Veilchenblau' rose I'm hoping will have enough sun to climb up the corner of the house.

Oh, I found a shot that shows the green man face on the lantern! It's taken from the other angle, showing the new foliage of several Tricyrtis hirta (toad lilies) behind it. There's also a clematis growing up the shepherds hook.

This old Lilac needs attention, and will get a good pruning after the blooms are done. The original part of this house is log, and was built in the late 1700s- early 1800s, and has been built onto a few times through the years, so there's no telling how old the lilac is. I was pleasantly surprised to see several blooms. I've been enjoying the wonderful scent, and have to bury my face in them every time I walk by.

The old lilac is very appropriately in the Jan Garden, as it was one of her very favorites. The Jan Garden at the entry leads to the side of the house where the color scheme makes a transition from the blues, purples, and mauves to a wider assortment of pastels. There is dappled shade through the area, where I find pastels really light up darker spots. I'm continuing the use of lavender and soft blues so the transition is soft and gradual. That's where I'm using most of my pink/apricot daffodils, and the dappled shade seems to help prevent the color from fading. Several of those have finished for the season, but these species Tulips 'Lady Jane' are still in full swing.

These 'Bell Song' have been dainty and lovely. The color is faded on the cups in this pic, both from brightness when I took it and the age of the blooms. The petals were a soft, buff yellow when they opened, and as they turned white the cups deepened to shell pink. The changes have been lovely!

This odd little Lilac was a score a couple of years ago, along with 4 others that I found at Lowes marked way down. They were in 5 gallon pots and I got them for $3.00 each! They all had mildew, so they must have thought they were dying. This one was just marked Old fashioned Lilac, but the growth is twiggy and the leaves are small compared to other lilacs, and the florets are larger with less fragrance.

This is another of the practically stolen Lilacs. Its by the front porch, and is bluer than the others, and I like the extra fat clusters of bloom. I've got the tags, but have to hunt them up. I'll try to match them up with the cultivars and add the names.

This one is in the Pink bed in the front of the house.

The others from that haul are budding, a Miss Kim and a Persian.

This is my Pink bed and its just waking up. The flowering almond put on a nice show with some muscari around the base and has the last few blooms hanging on. The Clementine Columbine and Fern leaved peony are filling in the gaps now.

A wider shot of the pink bed. The big shrub greening up in the back is a mock orange. It was huge, and had a diseased multiflora rose tangled throughout it along with a lot of dead growth. So it got a chainsaw pruning last spring!

So much promise! Roses, lilies, phlox, bachelor's buttons, Foxtail lily, and Saponaria all coming along nicely! I swore I wouldn't overcrowd when I started this garden....yeah, right!

The lucky thing about starting this garden is that the soil here is wonderful! Its very loamy with just enough clay to hold moisture well, but we're on a hill, so drainage is excellent too. The soils through much of this Bluegrass region came from limestone and tend to range from neutral to slightly alkaline. I amended the soil for some acid loving plants with peat moss, and save my coffee grounds compost for those areas.

I had lots of plants last spring to get in the pink bed, so I did a lot of sod stripping- uuugggg. In other areas I plugged in the woody plants, and sometimes stripped sod in a little island around the woody plants for a few perennials. Then I laid down cardboard over the sod and mulched with straw to connect the dots. In the areas where I stripped sod, I piled the sod up in areas where I wanted raised beds next to them. Then used cardboard over the piles and mulched with straw. By fall those mounds had "cooked" and are now the fluffiest black gold!

This bed is in the front yard, and is where I employed this method a lot. It started out as 4 little islands that I could barely fit the mower between. This spring its been fun being able to fill in the areas that have been under straw; its full of worms and digs like it was freshly tilled. A big, stupid mistake I made is evident all over though- Ornithogalum is everywhere! It was in some of the sod that was piled up, and of course it didn't compost. At the time I was thinking "oh, those little white blooms will be cute everywhere", now I realize what a problem they are! Most pull out easily, but where I've mounded layers of sod, they're too deep to get the bulbs. I'm resigned to a life-long routine of Ornithogalum removal, LOL.

This is looking west, with the pink bed behind me. Several Roses, lilacs, lilies, peonies, other perennials and a few bulbs are filling in the area now.

Same bed, taken from standing at the lower end of it, looking to the south. The house is just to the left of the pic and you can just see the corner. That shady area is where I'm using the pastels, and leads to the entrance/Jan Garden (you can see the truck bed there where we park, and enter). To the right of that shady area it opens up to a sunnier expanse. In those bright areas I'm using richer colors, darker versions of what is in the shady area. Since from the house, that area is looking westward, I'm calling it the Sunset garden and using the color palette of a brilliant sunset!

Turning to the left side of the house is where the path leads to what I'm calling my Sky Garden and Sunrise Garden. Again I went at it backwards, LOL. The area was not prepped for planting, but I "had" to get some bulbs in there to start the show first thing in spring. I decided to do a lot of bulbs right in the lawn, and gradually build the beds around them, with crocus naturalizing right in the paths. The effect has been very pretty through spring, but the weediness is getting on my nerves now; I knew it would, and that would push me into getting the beds in place.

The Sky Garden is all blue, white, and yellows, or at least will be. Still gotta beef up the blues with a bunch of small bulbs, but the yellow and white has been cheerful. The little teepee trellis is tobacco stakes and jute, and is there to support blue sweetpeas. To the right of that area is the Sunrise Garden, all in orange, yellow, and white, with some blue and purple touches.

The Sky Garden is composed of 4 beds now. This was taken standing in the lower part of the path, looking over one bed and into the other near the house. That plastic chair at the top is the one I drag around and sit and look and brainstorm about how to proceed. This land seems to be naturally terraced, making plantings show nicely from many angles, so I like to sit in different positions to ponder. Mr. Charcoal kitty was following me around the whole time I was taking pics, and stepped in before I knew it, LOL.

A bright little patch in the Sunrise Garden.

These Violas are Ultima Morpho Hybrid from Parks that I started last fall. I wish I had more of them! They perfectly exemplify the Sky Garden!

This part of the Sunrise Garden so far has species tulips, lilies, daylilies,and poppies in it.

I've just cleared this area of the Sunrise Garden. It's just been planted in Canna seedlings and Scarlet Gleam Nasturtiums. There are also lilies in there to arise through the annuals.

Sturdy little wintersown seedlings! (from free seed that came with an order to boot!)

The Sunrise Garden leads to the area where I start using reds, so I call this the Fire Bed. Full of Red Asiatic lilies and Victoriana Hybrids Dahlias. These are areas I see well from the back deck, so I use lots of hummingbird and butterfly attractors through there.

The 'Fire Beds' are around the shed out back. The other side has a bed in progress I don't have a pic of yet, but it has 5 Mr.Lincoln roses in it now, and I'm going to expand around it a bit and fill in with annuals that BFs and hummers like.

...which leads to the back of the house to a spot Jan had used for some vegetable. Bless her heart, every place she tried to garden here had either clay from where the basement had been dug out or the water line put in, or was, as in the case of this bed, full of rocks. Mind you, the only places I've found here with soil problems have been those spots, the rest has been super, LOL. So on this bed she employed lasagna gardening techniques to put in this bed. I've expanded it, and still let a few volunteer yellow, pear shaped tomatoes grow and some herbs, but its mostly devoted to BF and hummingbird plants. It's completely polychromatic! Note the yearly volunteer wild Verbascum.

..or rather, here's that verbascum, LOL.

And now I've walked you all the way around the house! Back to a little patch in the sun that connects to the Jan Garden. I've carried the purple into that spot with Pansies, that here I call "Jansies" LOL. These really remind me of her because they looked tie dyed.

And a final shot for now of a contrast I'm enjoying. Deep purple pansies with 'Lime Ricky' Heuchera.

Neal...it ALL looks fantasticcccc!!! I love it! I love all the bulbs! YOU have been busy!!
Thank you for the tour.
Not sure if I understood what you did with the sod you stripped....but just wanted to say, when Dave strips sod...(if no one wants it)..he piles it ...grass side down, on top of each other. It turns into the most beautiful rich soil!!

Edited to say, I hope and pray you don't get any frost..or us either! We have a chance of it tomorrow night!

This message was edited Apr 28, 2008 7:51 PM

Thanks for the tour of your garden Neal. Looks like you're off to a great start. How nice that you are able to continue building on what your friend started. The Ultima Morpho Hybrid viola are so pretty and just perfect for your sky garden

Susan

Thanks, Marcy! You got it right with the stripped sod, I sort of compost it right on site, and like you said, it becomes the richest soil. From trash to treasure! I'm lucky here to have good soil that in most places is nice 12-18" deep, but when I've gardened in places with just an inch or two of good top soil, I hated the thought of losing the best of the top soil attached to the grass roots. Guess this cold snap is what the old timers called "dogwood winter"- keeping my fingers crossed its not too wintery!

Susan, thanks so much! I admire your gardens so much, your kind words make me beam with pride :-) Those Violas have been my favorites; I'm going to try saving seed from them. No telling what the offspring will look like, but I've rarely met a pansy or viola I didn't like. Got some other seeds for various blue flowers started, and one is blue Convulvulus (bush morining glory). The pics show them as blue with a yellow throat ringed in white, so I'm hoping they'll be a good alternative to the violas in the heat of summer.

A happy find here, one of my Foxtail Lilies (Eremerus) is budding!

Neal - that is a gorgeous property! And how wonderful to have a garden named after your
friend. I sure am looking forward to a number of tours to see those beds progress through
the seasons and into maturity. You'll be able to walk your clients through them to give them
a first hand look at your talents.

Tam

PS: At my last house, I piled up the sod from a newly dug bed into one of those 3' cube wire
compost bins where I wanted to put my next garden. Threw some morning glory seeds on top
and had a glorious cube of color while the sod was breaking down. That fall, I took it apart
and had the compost I needed right there to dig in.

Thanks, Tammy! Someone who lived here in years past loved their trees and shrubs, and thankfully most of them are placed quite well. With all the spruces and shade trees already in place, as well as several forsythia, a flowering quince, the old lilac, and a mock orange, the "bones" of a cottage garden were already here. You can imagine how my mind was racing the first time I walked around the yard contemplating living here! Good idea using the morning glories that way! The "cube of color" sounds fun.

Gem--So much to take in here! I'm still studying all the pics and posts! Looks like a beautiful and huge project!

I love the names of your gardens!

Thanks, t, I have to give them some kind of name for record keeping, and the names now are so much better than the old garden, like "Right side of path" LOL.

OMG! It's HUGE! I knew you were getting a place with a bigger garden, but I really never imagined it would be so big! The bulbs look awesome, and so do the curves and sweeps, but you are going to kill yourself filling in all that space! (LOL! I must be getting old when all I can think of is the work involved!)

Have you seen the blue and yellow Lupin? Sunrise? Something like that -- same colors as that Jansie. :) The pictures in the catalogs make it look swe---eeeeet!

Suzy

Thanks, Suzy! Have you tried Sunrise Lupines? I tried some last year, but with the drought only a few plants produced blooms. They were pretty, but a little shorter than they were supposed to be. I didn't get any seed from them, but was hoping to spy a self set plant nearby (so far, none). I do need to try them again, only I'd like to try saved seed from another gardener- seems they usually do much better for me.

No, I've never had them. My seed was purchased, and I didn't even sow them since I am sticking with reds and corals this year. I did send some to Fairy in the swap, though...maybe she started them?

I think the flower on them is a lot smaller than the Russels, though...maybe more foliage that flowers? They never show them as a whole plant in the photos, but maybe I am too suspicious! :))