The small tree in the foreground is a weeping bald cypress. The small tree behind that is a japanese maple (coral bark), and my container of elephant ears, caldiums and impatiens in the back. Sweezle was at my house and told me what that bigger tree was in between them (you can just see the bark) but I forgot what she said it was! This garden also has monkshood, astilbe, ferns and hosta but you can't see 'em in this picture. :)
Jamie
the weeping bald cypress is fine!
texas--very pretty shade picture and I like your container of Caladium--very pretty, too, with the sun and shade playing on it.
Let's see some more pics! t.
Thanks! :)
Well I see other people's gardens and think mine just doesn't come close so I am hesitant to post pictures. Ha!
This message was edited Jun 21, 2005 10:12 AM
Jamie~
Every picture you have ever posted is GREAT!!! We are gardeners here - we all love to see any and every garden, even when the owner sees weeding that should be done, an edge that should be sharpened up, mulch that should be added - we just see the plants, the arrangment, the combinations, the beauty, and your garden is no exception....more pics!!!!
Happy 4th!!
Jamie
Well thanks Jamie. That was a nice thing to say! I think I just have a complex. See, my house was built in 1922 and needed a lot of work when we bought it... stil does. My husband got deployed with the National Guard and was at Ft. Lewis for a year. This happened two weeks after we closed on the house (June 2002). Then he came home and started school- expensive AND he only works part time. So, between money being tight and the fact that I was on my own that first year, I just didn't make the progress I wanted- house or landscape! So I always feel compelled to say "I KNOW it isn't great, but look at the pictures from 3 years ago and you can see how far I have come!" Hey- that's what I will do! Post my "progression" by area/room then I will feel like y'all will be impressed. Ha! Oh, couple that stuff with my lack of photography skills and I am REALLY hesitant to post. LOL!
well, in any case, it looks like your garden has good 'bones' with the beautiful fence and the handsome tree....lots of potential when you get to it!
I think we all feel a little sheepish about posting pics. I'm just learning how to use my digital and some of my pics are awful, but....
Jamie,
Well, considering all that, you have done an amazing job!! I think one of the greatest thing about gardening is that taking our time, and really getting to know our land, our tastes, our sun/shade areas - and so many other things big and small, that when we actually dig in, it pays off many, may times over. I look forward to seeing your garden develop, and grow along with your vision for it....please keep posting pics, I for one will be looking forward to them!!!
Jamie
Ok, you convinced me. Here is my Webshots link! If you look at the "Landscape Demo 2003" album. This was almost a year after we bought the house. Oh, in this album I was taking shots before and after the arborist pruned my trees and removed all that horrible nandina and overgrown shrubs from around the foundation. "After" does NOT imply it is done. LOL! If you look at the "front of house before" pictures, you can see a big empty space where I foolishly thought I could remove all that stuff by myself, with a shovel. Ha! NOT! And when I curse nandina throughout DG, this is why.
Also, if you will, take notice of the dead lawn and crumbling retaining wall around the front of the house. The house still needs to be painted and we need a new roof, but we did get that wall rebuilt and I have been working diligently on that lawn! It was dead in these pictures b/c I put down "weed and clover killer." Ok, when your lawn is 99% weed and clovers, that leaves you with a big brown patch of death! But that 1% Bermuda grass did take off. I am going to post individual pictures of the house as of this morning, after I make sure this link works. :)
Oh, there is a 2005 garden album on Webshots too which is recent stuff.
Thanks for looking!
http://community.webshots.com/user/jamielaws
Ok, if you looked at those before pictures in the April 2003 Webshots, you should recognize these various areas. These pictures are as of this morning.
First, the front of the house.
This is to the left of the sidewalk that runs through the middle of the yard. That long strip of dirt is from getting new gas lines run to the gas lamps we have (the other one is on the other side of the front porch. But we have that Bermuda grass so I'm sure it will be filled in with grass by the end of the week! LOL!
This is under the dining room window (the window you see in the previous picture). I put in varigated privet hedges to replace the nandia. I put a new burford holly on the far left next to the gate to the backyard. We had one there that my husband loved but I guess I wasn't clear in my instructions b/c the arborist ground it down with everything else. Oops! I also put in some sweet potato vine, wandering jew, and daylilies.
We have an L shaped front porch w/ two entrances. I still need to strip the peeling paint off the concrete- it's on the "to do" list which is longer than the Dallas phone book at this point. :). I got that swing in Mexico last summer. LOVE IT!
Here is the south side of the house. If you are sitting in the swing in the above picture, this is the view. Looking at this picture, the swing would be just out of view on the far left of the picture which is the step up onto the porch from this side. Sorry- just like to give "perspective" in pictures! :)
This is more of a view of the south side of the house, just continuing down from the right side of the above picture.
I dug out a bed along the fence line last fall and planted those climbing roses. They really took off! I also did that little "U" shaped area up against the fence nearest to the porch. I planted the verbascum at that time, but that's it I think. This spring I dug out the bed along the house and just now started planting it this spring. I also widened the fence-line portion of this bed. I dug out 103 square feet of grass in 2 days. WHEW!
The picture would help... sorry!
Ok I'll stop now... especially since this has clearly stopped being about shady gardens!!! I guess it's ok to highjack ones own thread though. :)
Hi texas--your pics are great and what an interesting house and garden project you have undertaken. Your 'bungalow' reminds me of the book I just got from the Library---'Bungalow Gardens' and all the good ideas for period garden/homes such as yours...
And I LOVE your porch...ooohhh...that is so wonderful!
And your retaining wall is just perfect. So, you've got me so excited with your pics...I have to ask...why don't you just forget the lawn and plant the whole front in a wonderful (but low maintenance) perennial bed?!! (...Just ignore that I said that. Silly thought. :-) )
Thanks!
"Interesting." Nice word choice Tabasco... :) To me that translates into "difficult, back breaking, bank account draining, etc." Ha!
My porch is 100% shade all day and has a nice cross breeze. In fact, that was one of the big selling points for us!
That "no lawn" has been tempting to me. But 2 problems- husband is all about a lawn. And more importantly, we are in a historic district so we have lots of rules to abide by. Basically they apply to the front of the house, unless the side/back of the home is visible from the street. As you can see, we are on a corner lot with an iron, rather than privacy, fence. Soooo, the rules apply to pretty much everything I do! One of those rules is the front yard/parkways must be NO MORE THAN 50% "garden." The other 50% has to be lawn. The only exception is you can choose a groundcover and not turf grass if you prefer. Such as my neighbors- they dug out all the St. Augustine on their parkway and put in lirope. St. Augustine on a difficult to water parkway, in Texas no less? Not practical! I think it looks nice too- they have crepe myrtles all the way down with the groundcover under it all. But my husband is very anti-"monkey grass" for some reason! Technically we even have an "approved plant list" that we should abide by, but that part isn't really enforced. They only pitch a fit when people pull out all the grass and make it all garden up front, or plant stuff like cactus, palm trees, etc.
Jamie ~
I am enthralled with your pictures!! Studied them at Webshots for quite a while....I have never had such a Clean Slate to start with....you can do ANYTHING, well anything within the CC&R's....;)
And I am impressed with the demo that you have already done....I'll bet that felt so good to get all that out of there!! Now for the fun part, planning, studying gardening books, watching gardening shows..(or Tivo-ing them to watch later..;) ), and of course looking all around DG to decide what you want to do! I do all that stuff all the time, and have a roughly 5-year plan to get the bones completed in my yard...then a life-time plan of changing, rearranging, and adding to it...LOL ;o) If my garden was ever "done", I would have to move to keep on gardening, its just what I do for ME! Not the kids, the Job, the dogs, my friends, but ME! I love all those other things, but Gardening is what soothes me, energizes me, gives me a place to be creative, and lets me do it my way - I simply love it!! And I can only imagine that as long as the scope of a new landscape to work on doesn't overwhelm (and come here if it starts too!!! LOL), you must have some of those feelings too...or maybe I am just a whacko...LOL ;o)
Enough for now!
Jamie
ps....I included a pic of my shade garden...Brunnera 'Jack Frost'.....love those leaves!! ;o)
texas--lol--yes, I have the same lawn issue with my DH.
In a way, too bad about your historic district rules--and by the way, the bungalow gardening book I referred to above is more correctly called "Outside the Bungalow"--
http://www.allkindsofgiftsonline.com/tools_hardware/routers/670883557.html
and your project would fit perfectly within its pages.
And I share your concerns about old house/garden challenges. Our CA house was built in 1926 and there were so many things we wanted/needed to do to it...
We had similar historic guidelines when we lived in Pasadena California...very particular place about the green space, but "the green police" were very 'pro tree/garden/green space' and very knowledgeable (and opinionated, too) about what they were up to...
BTW I meant 'interesting' in the most sincere way...your house has loads of charm and your tree and fencing are a huge plus. I can't wait to follow up on your project.
Good luck. t.
Thanks Jamie- and great pictures you posted too by the way!
I was sooo happy yesterday b/c my liquid epdem liner stuff came in... if you saw the pictures of the pond, this will make sense. There is a pond in the back yard between the house and the magnolia tree. We are renovating that right now and sealing it was the next step. Because of the rocks embedded around the edges of the concrete pond, I can't just use the regular old "roll out" pond liner stuff. This liquid paints in and dries to a membrane consistency just like the normal liners. Pretty cool! Expensive, but cool. :) So the "bones" in the back are the pond, the magnolia, and the 2 live oaks at the side of the yard (see first picture in this post). My husband is currently in the process of building a patio back there too. The only other major project in the back is taking out the sidewalk that runs down the side of the house (gets you from the house to the detached garage mainly) and replacing it with a 100 foot long, 4 ft wide flagstone path. Again, expensive stuff so it's on the "to do" list. But anyway, trust me when I say that at this point, lack of vision/ideas is NOT my problem.... lack of patience, funds, and hours in the day IS. LOL!
I have already studied every aspect of the landscape and know exactly what I want. It's just a matter of buying plants w/in a budget, focusing on perennials or prolific reseeding annuals, and being patient while my garden matures. THAT is the hard part! My goal is a cottage garden look, except in the shade garden where I at first wanted formal but now just want the casual woodland look.
T- I was just teasing ya. I knew you weren't slamming me. Not like when my SIL said they were naming their baby girl Colaney (pronounced Colony) and I was horrified but my response was a quick "that's an interesting name..." Ha! Anyway, do you have pictures of your "old" houses? I would love to see them! And I reeeaaallly need that bungalow book! Our Preservation Society people are very knowledgeable too- you nailed it though. They are very knowledgeable and very opinionated! So far my biggest issue with them is the paint color thing. You have to get any color you paint the outside of your house approved and supposedly that is based on if it is true to the period/style of these houses. Which is 1908-1935 bungalows and prairie style homes. They like us to stick to Craftsman detailing. But, we have no approved paint color list like most historic districts so it is 100% their opinion that these decisions are based on. And they do NOT like bold color. So one of my good friends is a preservationist architect and she is on the landmark commission committee and we had a nice long discussion about this. I told her that she and the others would like to see a bunch of khaki colored homes with white trim. It's neutral and safe and seems to appeal to most of their personal tastes. But homes of this era were NOT painted like that! They did use very bold colors. Frankly, I'm not a huge fan of a 2 story bright yellow house with orange trim, but that IS period so they should approve it, IMO. And I think they get too hung up on "is that period or not? we want the neighborhood to look like it did in the 1930s." Well great. Then we all need to NOT park our 2004 model cars on the street. And why did you get a dishwasher put in? They didn't have those in 1912. I am all about keeping the integrity of the homes intact, but they do get ridiculous.
That said, I have never had one CA application (certificate of appropriateness) denied and no one has said anything about planting choices!
Why not try the library for those 'Bungalow' books....if not at your neighbohood lib., they can get them for you, I'm sure...
I don't have any pics of our Pasadena house--it was mediteranean style, not bungalow, but same period as yours. (Didn't use our digital cam, then, and no scanner now. Boo hoo)
Yours is a wonderful project to work on with your DH...
Have fun. t.
I love old houses, and wish there were more people willing to take on the work required to bring them back to their glory, I just wish that the people on the preservation committees were more cooperative. Our old house was over 100 yrs old when we bought it, and in a preservation neighborhood. The house across the street was pink and purple, which the board approved, and they would not approve our blue and green. The pink was ok, but the purple, and my ex-hubby put it "looked like kool-aid barf". The green and blue that we wanted to use were based on the original colors of the house, and matched as best we could to paint scrapings. We ended up with a light yellow and blue, which I never did like very much and it never looked quite right. Other than the paint issues, we had a ball working on that house. There were so many little surprises! When we started working on stripping the trim in the parlor we found the most glorious pair of pocket doors that had been painted into the door jam. There were so many coats of paint that we never noticed the line or the latch. We also found the original leaded glass transom windows in the attic. When we got divorced, I think I was more upset about leaving that house than losing my husband. I was a lot younger then, though, and less involved with my job. There is no way now that I would have the time or the energy to redo another one. We live in a ranch house now, in a 70's neighborhood and I can paint any color I want. There's also a heck of a lot more room for gardening here. The old lot was 1/4 acre, the new house is on the outskirts of town on 6 acres.
Just found this thread, Jamie. Everything looks great!
Thanks! Slowly but surely it's getting there. :)
Oh Jamie ...what wonderful property you have! I would kill to have all that shade. When I hear people say they cant grow anything in the shade, I get so annoyed. I think they just dont try. I cant wait to meet you at the Houston gathering...and you are from Dallas too.:) btw where are the Hostas? :)
Sylvia
Thanks Sylvia. I love the shade too! I do have a few hosta but they are not in any of the pictures here. Too small for them to just "show up" in an overview picture. Ha! This is one of my Abba Dabba Do if you need a hosta fix. :) Am I supposed to be going to Houston???? Did I miss something?! LOL!
