"Wild" garden vs. tidy gardens which do you prefer

meezers--your garden is a beauty. Beautiful blooms everywhere! What kind of fertilizer do you use?!! ;-)

meezersfive, I LOVE that second photo of your rock wall! They are all beautiful but that one had me in awe. What beautiful garden beds you have created!

I actually quite admire tidy gardens, but my own style of gardening is 'cottage style'. In my case it is a catchall phrase meaning, "This woman can't walk past an interesting plant (foliage, color, flower, whatever) without buying at least one", LOL. I justify our wildly colorful garden beds by pointing out that we have a very architecturally undistinguished cottage, built cheaply and quickly in the early 1940's, and thus we need a striking garden to give it interest and curb appeal!

I love it! I am starting to work on my front yard and this is what I would love it to look like.

jkom51 - that is absolutely adorable! You have a lot of impact for such a little space.

Many thanks to all of you for your kind words....it's been a labor intensive project since we started with only a new lawn in the spring of 2000. Gradually we've added more flowers, and moved lots of "too big for their britches" perennials, but it's finally coming together.

Rocks? We are in what is known as a Kettle Moraine area of Wisconsin. It's where the glaciers came through (back when I was a child according to my grandchildren) and rolled all the rocks around and piled them up in the "kettles", so we have small human head sized rocks in abundance. We had to haul in some of the Biggies but for the most part we just dragged them from all over the acre to where we could use them. Not many are attractive, mostly brownish black and round. They are easy to find, just stick your shovel in the ground. Clunk! Oh, there's another one. Plus lots of it's nieces and nephews, and cousins and uncles...........

The photo shows the big ones, as well as the part of the front garden that we are destroying because of a hideous prehistoric weed called Field Horsetail. We've used two kinds of weedkiller, and nothing seems to touch it. Next step is to go out there and flick my Bic because there's two or three inches of burnable woodchips which should toast the little roots nicely. Just waiting for a breeze from the right direction. . . . . . just call me Smokey...

Fertilizer is mostly Miracle Gro in these photos from '04, but now I'm also using Preen and Green which keeps the weed seeds from sprouting. It's not 100% but it sure cuts down on dandy-lions. We also mulch with grass clippings and turn those in in fall to loosen up the heavy clay soil.

Jkom, your cottage looks quite comfortable among the flowers and plantings, who needs to see the house? . I'm also afflicted with the gottahaveit plant syndrome. Went past Home Depot Friday ( uhh not exactly past...) ended up filling my trunk, and as if that wasn't enough, went back Saturday and filled the back of hubby's hatchback. There 's always room for more.

Yeah, people who don't garden are unaware of the hours we put in, just to keep pace with the weeds, fertilizing, soil amending, deadheading, watering and pruning....I try to get out every day and give some attention to a specific area, so that I can see what I've accomplished. If I wander around and just pick a weed here and there, it doesn't please me because it's hard to see the difference. If I focus on one bed, I feel I've done some good.

Time for a rest ..I dug in 36 of my bargain plants from Home Depot and I deserve to put my feet up for a while!! But first, I have to move the sprinkler................

Tried to edit to add, all that green stuff in the photo is the WEED, it doesn't even look sick does it? Anyone got marshmallows?

Wild, you all call that wild??? Those are the tidiest gardens I have seen!!! This is my garden, well part of it, it is called my secret garden, a hideaway in the backyard where no one dares to go, but me!!! LOL. I plant for nature, butterflies, hummers, any critter, frogs, ect, ect. Enjoy and don't faint, cause there is no grass in my back yard at all!!!

Oh, I do love your gardens, envious that I cannot do that!!!! Have a great day, and here are my tadpoles in my little pond.

Rose, I'll go in there! that looks like a really fun hideaway!

Notmartha: Your garden is wonderful! I think the rock lined paths add a nice contrast of order, plus make it easy to walk around and enjoy the flowers. Love your lupines! Do you start from seeds or buy plants? Are they perennial for you?

Thanks konkereteblond, I do have a paved pathway to it, you just can't see it!!! I also have a chaise lounge, and my gingers and my brugs all provide shade as well as my neighbors redbud tree over me. My middle back yard is tidy since we have a small pond and a deck off the back door. But my wild gardens are just that WILD!! Natives and orphans, and roses mixed in the lot!!! I even grow my tomatoes in my roses, they love it there, and do quite well. I have about 10 baby swallowtail cats right now on my bronze fennel, second bunch! I have monarchs, and gulf frits on my passifloras too. The frogs love the pond, and the little fish(goldfish) love the tadpoles(newly hatched ones anyway.
Mosquito hawks or dragonflies, I have seen such vivid colors. And of course pesty mosquitos in the evening unfortunately. But it is my wild kingdom, and I love it!!! Here is a picture of my tidy part of the back yard. My front yard is native and for the birds and critters too, especially hummers!!!

It looks just beautiful! I'm so jealous of the trees you have, but not really jealous of that humidity.

LOL, I don't like it either, the humidity and the heat!!!! Mosquitos love it, and they love me too!!! :) The trees are vitex(chaste trees, and my back neighbors hackberry tree behind that!!! Wax myrtles(for birds too) and brugs for hummers(and the hummingbird moths--look like tiny little hummingbird babies!!!!). My yard is certified by the NWF, so I grow what I can for nature and family to enjoy! Just had my son's wedding by the white arbor in front of my pond, they loved it, the roses were blooming and it was beautiful for them.
Have a great weekend!!!

Ahh, that just sounds wonderful! I'm disappointed in my stuff this year. The heat and drought has been hard on it. I've just started seeing one little hummer recently! :) No trees here except the Chinese Pistache on one end and a Crepe Myrtle (which will get big) on the other end. Do you have a photo album somewhere? webshots?

Hi Konkreteblonde, thank you. Here is a picture I just took this morning of my wild kingdom. It is of a female orange big dragonfly, who mated with a brown dragonfly earlier. It is a showoff and not scared of me, so I got some good shots, especially ones like this, hope you like it!!! By the way that is my dragonfly sprinkler, could it be more appropriate that this dragonfly loves it!!!!

He's beautiful! My dragonflies love the little garden art things that I have too. I sure need rocks in my garden. It makes it look so peaceful. But rocks out in the middle of the desert just don't add the same feeling.

.OH, that must be different living in the desert huh? So what grows well there? Cactus of course LOL. But besides the trees you mentioned, what else???

Well it looks like I have to get in on this.
Here's my garden in the spring before my back/liver problems hit again.Then two weeks ago last night I stepped into a hole my dogs dug.So this was the beginning of a kept garden.

The after photo is what my garden looks like now.Not very good.lol.Huh but the bird and bees and butterflies really don't seem to care.Jody

I am loving this thread - so much creativity and such very hard work. And I vote for wild. Tidy is beautiful - but I'm afraid that it's just beyond me. I'm always looking for a place to tuck just one more plant.

But watching the gardens emerge is just fabulous. Great idea.

Azaleas under redwood trees (which are very messy!) and ferns. The ferns get bigger as the season passes and the flowers go away. The bench is beautiful but as cold as ice. Rock benches in the shade - not a very good idea. But a nice peace of architecture.

This was taken in March. Notice that blank spot? It has daylilies now. I just can't resist a 'hole' in the garden.

Great garden, so colorful!

I'm looking at the huge gardens here - and I'm amazed at the work! Mine just has little spots but the thought of filling in the large spaces makes me feel overwhelmed. I'm thoroughly impressed. I don't know that I'd know where to start. But you've all had some really beautiful ideas.

Hi Doss, yours is beautiful too, very nice and creative. I am just a plant addict and look for "little spots" to plant. I am growing a live arbor right now, will be taking pictures soon. I wish I lived near woods for branches though to make some natural arbors out of downed trees and furniture to boot. But I am in suburbia land.,LOL.
Keep these pictures coming y'all, love it!!! Here is our swallowtail cats this morning on my bronze fennel plant, not much left of it.

That's what I do. I take a small spot and fill it in. Then I take another small spot and fill it it etc. I know what you mean about the large areas, I have a front yard I want to turn to a garden instead of a lawn and I don't know where to start.

Start on one side and work your way across.Just a joke :)

I just expanded my beds every year until they all met in the middle!

Thats the way to do it Sylvi74, at least that is what I did. I did not want the regular beds, I wanted more and more and more!!! LOL. Now no grass hardly to deal with. My beds are irregular, no two look alike and grow the same things! And my front yard is totally different color combos from the back, hot colors in front, pastels in back. But there are a few strays that I have left where they fell from the birds! :), afterall, they planted it!!!

I love the "slide over" approach. :-)

For me though, the "garden room" approach is what I love. Once you have a structure, you can stick anything in and it looks good.

Find "use spaces" and then build around them. In this photo you can see that I'm working on the far fence. It has plants there, they just aren't grown yet. Climbing Hydrangea and clematis.

With the patios laid out and a plan - I got rid of all the lawn. But if you have room - you can have that too.

If I lived in the East, I think that I'd have winding grass paths. Always wanted them.

Rose,

What is a live arbor?

I like your cat pic, too...

Hi Red Maggie, it is when you take two live trees and let them grow tall enough to intertwine with a little help or none, depending on tree. I have redbuds that have grown about 8feet apart and their branches are reaching to each other, so I have twined them together at the top, no wires or anything yet, but may have to later on if they do not stay. That way you have a "living arbor" and you prune off the lower branches and grow your roses or vines or whatever on them. I have wanted to do this for years, and this year mother nature with the help of the birds, planted the trees in the right spot!!!! Redbuds are easily grown from seed and bloom before the leaves come out and are gorgeous in the fall, and all their leaves fall for winter. So if you have an evergreen vine or roses on the trees(planning it right now), you will have all seasons blooms!!!! I will let you know if it works out that way!!!

rose, I actually don't live in a desert, but I do sometimes think I AM Laura Ingall's Wilder. I should have made my screen name "Prairiegirl". I have 2 Shumard Red Oaks that are growing nicely, a Chinese Pistache that is doing great, a large Crepe Myrtle and 2 smaller ones, and a small, slow growing Big Tooth Maple. One of the Red Oaks is just now big enough to block a little bit of afternoon sun. I'm so excited to show people my SHADY spot. lol

Everyone's stuff looks just beautiful! Keep the pics coming! I am getting a little tired of my wildness so I'm fixing to go out and relocate or trash a million cosmos.

Oh don't trash those cosmos, the butterflies love them!!! At least save the seeds to swap with other gardeners!!! LOL. I am trying for a neater look too in some areas, but others are wild. Nice trees you have konkreteblond, and I bet you are so happy with that shady spot!!! I wish I lived in the country sort of, with a creek, pond, but transportation to the doctor and groceries of course!!! LOL! You should be able to grow the crepe myrtles quite nicely and succulents perhaps, cactus, and some exoctics too, I guess. NOt familiar with too much dry plants, except wildflowers and cosmos is one that is great for drought, as well as indian blankets, lantanas. I have a hodgepodge mix of plants, starting with antique roses, vitex trees, hibiscus, lilies, lantanas, hummingbird bushes, firespike, chinese witchhazels, orchid trees, gingers, brugs, ferns, yarrows, salvias, alstomerias, daylilies(new endeavor), bonasairis verbena, cannas, butterfly bushes, caladiums, bounganvillas, morning glories, passifloras, coral vine, dutchmans pipevine, coral honeysuckle(non invasive kind), just alot of plants all over the yard. But my first plants were antique roses. They are my favorite I think ?????? I have two big crepes out front, pine trees, redbuds of course, and roses, ect, ect, ect. My hubby thinks I am nuts to grow so much, but it is my hobby, not his. I also grow tomatoes and peppers, cucumbers and try to grow cantelopes, and small watermelons, but no luck this year because of the drought and such. Tomatoes love roses by the way, they grow well next to them. In my garden anyway. Enough on me, how about the rest of you, what do you have in your garden that you love???
Ruby

I have an ongoing list of plants I LOVE.
Campanula Joan elliot
Coreopsis earlly sunrise
golden sage
4 o'clocks
sweet william
feverfew (I love the white flowers)
chinese forget me knots
blue eyed grass
aster wonder of staffa
aster alma Potchke

I'm getting great ideas.heehee

Magnolia trees, Oak trees, Birch trees, Ginko trees, flowering anything trees, and above all, Japanese Maples
Chinese Pistache in the fall.
Daylilies, tulips, narcissus, iris, dahlias, Canna,
Russian sage, different types of grasses, heuchera, begonias, fuschia, hellebore
azaleas (particularly Kurume), camellias, gardenias,
Spotted Leopard plant, flowering maple, Clematis ( my favorite right now is 'Etoile Rose'), hydrangea...
Sea lavender, Watsonia, Chocolate Cosmos, (the breeze smells like a chocolate factory)
Million Bells, Butterfly Bush, Hosta...
Ferns, ferns and more ferns.

Here is a Kurume Azalea. You have to pay a little because they go dormant for a short time after they bloom. But wow.

Can't get much more wild than this.lol.It's my woods last fall.
edited because I can't spell. :-)

This message was edited Jul 12, 2005 8:53 PM

Rose,

That is such a neat idea. I would love to see pics as it develops. I just bought an arbor to put my trumpet vines on (in hopes of keeping them under control - ha ha). Of course, I am not the patient kind, and growing trees aren't immediate. :) But it is something to think about for in the future. I can hardly wait to see it.

Jody, that is a beautiful, peaceful place..... I would love water in my yard, but I don't think I can even keep up with a small pond. Right now all I have are toad pans... lol

Dont you guys think you are being a little modest about your gardens? :) I have never seen so much color in one place...other than the garden magazines....yours are so beautiful! I have been trying for five or six years to get variable color! How is it that you guys plants bloom all at the same time? I can only take one picture at a time of something in bloom.:( I continue to cram stuff in too!) Then I end up with something that should not be there. I got Acanthus, Dahlias and hardy hibiscus, daylillies crammed in the same area. I got trumpet vines growing on top of the Mimosa tree. Thats a good thing because that area shades my Hostas and Heliaborous. I got a Confederate Jasmine that has to be moved because its not getting sun anymore. I got move the Acanthus because its getting too much sun. I got a gunnera to move into more shade...thank God its in a pot. In the back part of my place where I get nothing but sun...I got this Lady Banks rose bush that manage to climb the 12 ft fence and going everywhere even in the neighbors court yard, he loves it though! :) Since they replaced my 8ft fence with 12 ft and choped down the honeysuckle I dont have anything for my Clemitis to climb up on...oh its just too much. My courtyard is a mess and over grown! I cant handle this all by myself .... yet I still buy plants ....
Sylvia
my lady banks rose bush early in the season

This message was edited Jul 13, 2005 7:52 AM