Cottage Garden Diary

21 Feb '06 8:19 am

Welcome, QuillGordon! Great picture of your cottage garden. The colours are really vivid - specially the cute bird table. I like the purpley leaves too - they look very familiar.

21 Feb '06 10:11 am

A perfect cottage garden !
The purple -leaved plant looks like a sage to me -very at hame in its delightful surroundings,and a useful herb to have .I love the imaginative bird house too.
Dixie.

21 Feb '06 10:57 am

Thank you for the compliments... Very Happy

The purple leafed plant is Sage (the herb) I forget the exact name... The bed is situated facing south/east more south than east and takes sun until about 4-5pm in mid summer..
I guess I should give a little history, I live in Utah about five miles south of Salt Lake, so I believe I'm gardening in zone 5... The house that my wife and I own was built by my Mother-In-Law in 1993, unfortunately she passed away in 02 of breast cancer... Before she passed away my wife spoke to her about us takin residence there and myself tending to her garden, she was happy knowing her home/garden was going to be in our care.... I've changed plants somewhat but have stuck to her particular plan... In the rear of the home is a redwood deck that my brother and I built for Joanne back in 95, she wanted it covered in Wisteria and Clematis and surrounded by two perennial beds.. The front of the home has the same bones (bushes/trees) but I have given the bed more of a curve and added some annuals (Impatients).. I've also cut in two other beds in the rear of the home...
I have been at gardening for approx thirteen yrs, many unorganized gardens and mistakes made, each year I counter with new mistakes, what fun it is... Very Happy

I also take pics from time to time to remind myself of what I did the previous year...I'm not exactly your typical Gardener, (somewhat crude) but come from a long line of greenthumbs on my mothers side... What brings me here was a search for the magazine Fine Gardening and stumbled onto this site... Anyways, hello Exclamation

21 Feb '06 9:25 pm

Dear friend, you are so lucky living in this much loved garden!
Your story is touching and ,together with the green thumb family story, it is not by chance having the fantastic results of this gorgeous garden! I love the warmness of the dark brown wood! The vivid, radiant colours of flowers playing this harmonious contrast with your happy, healthy, dark green lawn! I wonder which summer months these photos are taken, June-July, maybe??

I would like to have this same blessed luck when I pass away: that certain loving people --like yourself and your wife --continue to care of my beloved garden, like you do! It won't really matter to me if they are relatives or not ; just to really Love my garden!

22 Feb '06 1:20 am

Welcome Quill! Your gardens are very beautiful! And it seems we have alot in common. I also live in the USA - Iowa, which is also Zone 5! The end of March will mark the 2nd anniversary of my father's passing. My sisters and I decided it would be best to sell my father's acreage. But before letting it go I dug and transplanted the majority of his large gardens to my yard. I'm still working on the details of getting it all to look the way I want it to, but as you said, its an on-going process.

Liza - It will take a few years for it all to fill in, so I'll probably need to fill space with annuals in the meantime. I also remembered that I have some Hollyhocks in another bed that need to be transplanted and am considering where they will go. I'm actually thinking about planting them on front, right corner of the house.

I seem to struggle with the foundation plantings the most. I reworked the beds in the front of the house last year, but I am still not happy with the way they look so I will be trying again this year. I made the mistake of not planting substantial enough plants and shrubs in the back of the beds along the foundation of the house. And, I may end up having to widen the beds again to make it all work. Well, live and learn. Smile

The photo at the bottom is the front of our house from last year, just so you can see what I'm talking about. There are butterfly bushes at each corner that were new last year and will be larger this season.

I'm really not happy with the Maple trees plopped in the front yard. We didn't put them there and I'm considering putting kidney shaped beds around each tree so they don't look so much like they're floating in nowhere.

22 Feb '06 1:26 am

Liza - I was going to post a photo of the wheelbarrow for you, and nearly forgot! I had to leave it empty last year because it was so late in the season, but here's the photo. This was taken shortly after I transplanted the hosta, so they look spindly!

22 Feb '06 1:50 am

22 Feb '06 2:31 am

I am going to try my best to keep my diary going here, folks.... but honestly its been difficult with the kids, the house and the new job. Until recently I had semi-retired. That is, I had gone from working full-time to working part-time, which at my age (not yet to my mid-40's) and with 2 kids still at home (ages 12 and 13) was extremely nice for me and the family. But a company I used to work for called and wanted me to come back to work for them.... full time. And, while I'm not crazy about the full work week, they made sure to make it up to me in salary and benefits.... so I'm still adjusting to the new schedule. I wonder how I ever managed to work 2 jobs, keep up with 3 small kids and keep the house clean when I was younger! Shocked

I guess we do it without thinking about it because we just have to....

Anyway, back to the diary.... and do interject at any time!

My main goal for this season is to get the front and the sides of the house (foundation plantings) right. When I started this project last spring the only beds were small, rectangular beds, one on each side of the front door. (Photos are posted below)

I expanded those beds both in length and width, adding soft, curves. Then I extended the beds all the way down both sides of the house so that they meet with the large beds in the back of the house.

I like the shape of the beds but I'm wondering if I should have made the bed on the West side wider? I need to keep the beds on the sides of the house fairly narrow because our lot is very narrow, only 50', which leaves me with only a few feet on each side.

I also need to keep in mind that the Butterfly bushes (one at each front corner of the house) are still very small and will grow trmendously this season. But I'm just not happy with the front beds at all. I think I need to add small shrubs of some kind in the back of the beds, and put the smaller plants in the front. Eventually I want it to look more like the potos of Quill's bed; very full and lush.

I'm struggling because I don't have a clue what to plant to hide the foundation. I'm not big on anything that looks like a pine so I'm leaning more toward something like Spirea. Problem there is that I'm not sold on that idea either. It seems like everywhere I look these days someone has planted Spirea. It's the "vogue" thing to do in the Midwest these days, and I'd like something different from what everyone else is doing. I'm such a rebel. Rolling Eyes

I keep reminding myself that my garden is only in its third season this year. Just 2 years ago there were the 2 small beds in the front of the house and nothing else... nothing! No landscaping, no deck, no other beds at all. I seem to want everything to hurry up and grow all at once for me, which just isn't going to happen. Patience. Patience. Patience.

So, here I am... left perplexed. I've been pouring over seed catalogs for weeks for ideas. I've been watching every t.v. show I can find on the subject... and have even bought a couple of books on the subject. And I still can't make up my mind!

I should tell you that part of the problem is that I have a slight (as in HUGE) habbit of being a perfectionist, which really isn't helping the process. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

22 Feb '06 4:08 am

It's a long gardening way to go, Cot. Garden, but with such a positive, creative thinking and imagination, everything will be accomplished on time! And even more beautiful! You'll see...

Will you turn your wheel barrow into a...picturesque ,blooming pot? Full of lovely petunias, maybe??

I love your human openess and spontaneity! I really hope and wish, that you are always happy with your dear family!

22 Feb '06 4:22 am

Dear Quill, your photos have an especially magnificent bright light and contrast! The flowers look so beautifully vibrant! Their colours being so radiant! Do you remember what time of the day you took your last , beautiful photo? Early morning? Before the sunset? I have personally noticed , that my flower photos become more vivid after a summer rain , when the sun quickly reappears, and also 2 hours before the sunset. Also, early in the sunny morning the plant colours acquire an exquisite brilliance...

Cottage Garden Diary

cottage garden

You are lucky!

Good morning!

Almost forgot!

Re: You are lucky!

Okay, where was I?

A long gardening way..

Beautiful light!