|
|
|
Mark
Home gardener & plant fetishist
Berkeley, California, USA
Climbing rose pruning tips welcome!6 May '07 5:19 pm
Liza,
I wonder if you could describe how far you cut back your Altissimo rose. I am so chicken with climbers generally. I suspect it would grow back as tall in a season but I just never risk a severe pruning. I tend to just cut out dead and spindly growth and deadhead. Please tell me what you do for yours.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Mark
Home gardener & plant fetishist
Berkeley, California, USA
Some odds and ends from last week's photo shoot.6 May '07 5:58 pm
I'll be shooting some new photos soon, but here are few from last weekend.
DSCN0004.JPG
The passion vine on the upstairs deck. 'Alata', I think.
404.07 KB / Viewed 41 Time(s)
DSCN0112.JPG
Here is one Gunnera leaf, shot from below. With the bamboo torn out of the area a year ago, it looks like it is recovering its size again.
439 KB / Viewed 48 Time(s)
A DSCN0080-5.JPG
The back door from the dry garden bed showing the new wire column. So far it is pretty good staking for the Cape Honeysuckle which grows above the two story height of the warehouse, but it looks more than a little crude.
196.67 KB / Viewed 52 Time(s)
A DSCN0079-2.JPG
Another view of the back of the warehouse showing the Azara tree, the flowering cape honeysuckle, the pink mask flower below and that is euphorbia lambii in the foreground of the dry garden bed surrounded by california poppy volunteers.
184.67 KB / Viewed 50 Time(s)
A DSCN0081-2.JPG
In the dry garden bed these are Straussii cacti, with Leucadendrum 'Red Gem' between, and, at its feet, yellow freesias and Daphne 'Burkwoodii'.
252.49 KB / Viewed 45 Time(s)
DSCN0011.JPG
Sophie resting on the backpath.
423.84 KB / Viewed 50 Time(s)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Liza
gardening consultant
Waterloo, Belgium
Captivating!7 May '07 3:15 am
Dear Mark! Your garden has its very own , captivating personality! It also has a splendid lighting, in the way I see it in your lovely captures!
Some of the plants you mention I do not recognize, but my feelings of joy rest the same watching your happy , sun-bathed garden!!
Altissimo's pruning tips:
Well, every year I have to prune him, cause he becomes 3,5 or more meters tall, much taller than the compost screen. I have attached him on the compost screen as described in my Rose books, the stems as horizontal as possible, in order to acquire the most possible new shoots .
Now ; I prune him about 3 feet short, only the vertical stems, in order to give him the chance to become huge again! He seems really happy in this way, non-stop blooming the whole of the season , while his basal part does not become so ugly and empty. Along his base I have planted other perennials, in order to cover the last of his empty stems' ugliness, like Geraniums , Daisies, Rudbeckias, Delphiniums, Salvias , etc
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mark
Home gardener & plant fetishist
Berkeley, California, USA
The first garden photos of June3 Jun '07 12:13 pm
Well it has been a while but I just shot off a bunch of photos in the garden so here are the best.
(By the way Liza, I did mean to thank you for the rose pruning tips. I shall be very severe with them this winter.)
I've got to run now but I will post some more when we get back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mark
Home gardener & plant fetishist
Berkeley, California, USA
Here are some more June 2nd photos.3 Jun '07 4:36 pm
We went to a birthday party for a young woman who used to teach in my department. Nice set up in their garden but what a cold, windy day. Okay, now for some more pictures.
aa 'Red Velvet' Linaria + .JPG
This is a new red flowered pelargonium and, in the back, mexican lobelia growing with a new linaria hybrid, "Red Velvet".
268.74 KB / Viewed 51 Time(s)
aa sm. cuphea & artemesia .JPG
This is a little cuphea growing infront of the artemesia 'Powis Castle', infront of the corner deck.
344.92 KB / Viewed 56 Time(s)
aa variegated pelargonium .JPG
This is a detail of the variegated pelargonium that grows on the arch with 'Sally Holmes'.
462.73 KB / Viewed 49 Time(s)
aa upstairs planters .JPG
The upstairs deck has two planters. Both have campanula. The lower one also has the passionvine 'alata'.
259.35 KB / Viewed 42 Time(s)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jack Holloway
Passionate Gardener
SEQUOIA FARM Haenertsburg South Africa
Gorgeous plants and summer holidays...3 Jun '07 6:21 pm
To use your Swiss Army Knife image, Mark: it is wonderful to get to know your garden better with each posting. I like the idea of garden maps -I've posted some comments on Gordon's diary.
Two weeks to the holiday and no major plans?! Why, I know whose garden is going to have time lavished on it this summer...
I've been away or had visitors or other priorities every holiday for ages (he said feeling sorry for himself). I'd love the luxury of a few weeks of dedicated gardening. April it seems will be my first opportunity. That will end a two-year period during which I spent less time than ever over the past twenty years in the garden. April I said? Problem is that my nephews are now of an age where I would love to see them twice a year...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jack Holloway
Passionate Gardener
SEQUOIA FARM Haenertsburg South Africa
Gorgeous plants and summer holidays...3 Jun '07 6:44 pm
To use your Swiss Army Knife image, Mark: it is wonderful to get to know your garden better with each posting. I like the idea of garden maps -I've posted some comments on Gordon's diary.
Two weeks to the holiday and no major plans?! Why, I know whose garden is going to have time lavished on it this summer...
I've been away or had visitors or other priorities every holiday for ages (he said feeling sorry for himself). I'd love the luxury of a few weeks of dedicated gardening. April it seems will be my first opportunity. That will end a two-year period during which I spent less time than ever over the past twenty years in the garden. April I said? Problem is that my nephews are now of an age where I would love to see them twice a year...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mark
Home gardener & plant fetishist
Berkeley, California, USA
Swiss army knife?4 Jun '07 2:02 am
That sounds vaguely familiar but I can't remember the reference. Thanks for the kind words just the same. Yesterday was cold, cloudy and windy but I couldn't resist shooting a few things. I'm trying to figure out which photos, if any, are better off for the lower light level.
You know I was reading Annie's catelog and that bicolored Linaria you've mentioned before is actually from Africa! Of course it says North Africa, which probably means you're no more likely to have encountered it than I am to have come across tundra moss growing in Northern Canada.
We'll miss you but I'm quite sure you've earned your trip. Next year we're hoping to get to England and Spain. On the way I'm hoping to stop in Paris and on the way see Liza and her wonderful garden in Belgium. Oh yeah, the pups look great by the way.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Faith S
Perpetually learning gardener
Alabama, USA
Enjoying your unusual plants5 Jun '07 1:42 am
Dear Mark, I have so enjoyed seeing all the unique plants you grow. So many of them I have never grown. I am also very envious of all the Forum friends plans for flying off to distant lands. Don't get me wrong, I love being retired and having so much more time to devote to my gardens and my animals, but I am a little sad that I won't be able to travel very much. All that fixed income business, you know. Oh well, no tears here though. I am busily watering all my beds in hopes of keeping them looking as good as possible for the open garden this coming weekend. Wish you all could be here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mark
Home gardener & plant fetishist
Berkeley, California, USA
Break a leg!5 Jun '07 3:09 am
I hope you are happy with the shape the garden is in for your event. Even more, I hope you make new local friends who are also into gardening. You're going to get so much feedback on your gardens, something most of us don't get regularly. I always am interested to see which combinations or views people respond to. Sometimes they'll steer my attention to something I'd not noticed. This will be a rich experience .. perhaps it would be best with a cup of tea?
|
|
|
|
|
