Billy - I want to get rid of my anemone, or at least make it a LOT smaller. Somebody else wants some, but I have reservations about whether it would live or not. I'm willing to give it a chance if you want to d-mail me. Have you considered it doesn't like being under or near the black walnut? Mine was very, very slow to take off until I got it more sun. (Sun is scarce in my garden) Yes, your campanula is wonderful and if there is a plethora of seed, I would love some, too. Always looking for blue and things that are easy!
Suzy
So what makes a Cottage Garden, well, "Cottagey"?
I'm wondering if a black walnut is the issue too. I have read that they release a natural herbicide that keeps some plants from growing close to them. Mine (anemones) are in quite a bit of shade and don't seem to mind.
Juglone is the name of the toxic substance, here is more information, and a list of plants that tolerate it.
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1148.html
http://wihort.uwex.edu/landscape/Juglone.htm
The walnuts might be the problem. The east wall I want to try is by a walnut too! I have 3 walnuts, and the south bed is under the neighbor's 2. I can't win!
What about a stretch of lawn? As much as I'd love to get rid of the d@^& St. Augustine grass altogether, I think the eye needs it.
" I often think of quaint and organized"
Magnolialover: I also enjoyed your description but smiled at that part, because I think of cottage gardens as more of an organized chaos. This was my first attemp a few years ago. It was waaayy to sparse! (Laid every brick of that walkway myself - also a first for me.)
But, I'm planning a color explosion next season. :) I've expanded my ideas of the "appropriate" plants to things like Salvia and Butterfly bush, too.
Deb
Gemini, I like Margarrette. Never saw that one.
Billy, I like that campanula too.
Debin, that looks great...love the brick path!
Oh, Billy! You really have a lot of Black Walnuts! Do the squirrels think they own the place and dig up all your bulbs?
Brigid - Yes, The sort of "sea of green" leads the eye. Or a path can do the same, too. I have severe grass troubles here, tho. I need BigCity Al to help me out. I think he said he knows a lot about grass. I have a "fake" grass that looks like grass, acts like grass, but it is a slightly different, brighter green than bluegrass or rye or the other real lawn grasses. It turns brown, but I can't remember when. In the height of our hot dry summer, it stays bright green, unlike the bluegrass. (that's good and why I allowed it to stay for so long) Here's the problem: It sets seed and when I do the leaves and grass in the fall, I mulch the beds. In the summer I collect the grass clipping to the compost pile. This fake grass has a million seeds and they all come up in my beds at germination time! I have an entire lawn growing in my mulched flower beds! Grrrr. I am hoping BC Al has some insight for me.
Deb - Really nice path you did. I like the running brick style and it looks really well-done. Is that mortar? You mortared it in? We can't do that here without an 18" footer (well, we can do it but it will heave right up) All our bricks are set in sand. The fence. I think a fence makes it cottagey. I'm adding fence to the list, too.
Suzy
This message was edited Nov 15, 2006 11:10 PM
Suzy - what does it look like now?, that could narrow things down some.
crabgrass would have the seeds, although there are some 'grasslike' weeds
http://ipm.ppws.vt.edu/scott/weed_id/digis.htm
Hi Al!
It's bright green and it's also very soft, which I believe lets out Bermuda grass and those southern grasses that poke your legs when you sit on them. It is not nimble weed, or crabgrass, and not the crabgrass in the link you sent. It's a more vertical growing grass than crabgrass but it does sort of bend, so not as vertical as bluegrass or rye. The blades are relatively wide, as wide or wider than bluegrass. My camera is bad for closeups, but I could try tomorrow if it's not pouring. It stays relatively short, likes a lot of moisture and also when I sowed grass back there, it was the first to come up. Takes a lot of foot traffic, the same as real grass. It just SEEDS everywhere and the seeds all grow and germinate. It also shows up in pictures as a totally different green than the rest of the lawn -- sort of takes away from "the look", but only in a picture. In person, you can't really tell it.
There is a possibility that the seed heads are little balls on top of a stem fairly close to the ground, not as long a seed-stem as bluegrass or rye. To be honest I am guessing on the seed heads from a kind of grass I have growing somewhere else. (in 100% shade. I once tried to kill it by pouring 46-0-0 on it -- didn't kill it, even though there were places 1/2 thick of fertilizer on it) I don't think I've seen any seeds on the grass in the back, but they are there!
I'm making it sound kind of good, aren't I? LOL
Suzy
Al, Always took you for an expert on grass!
Dave
Al -- Nice website. They didn't have it in their database. I ought to take it to our county extension guy.
Suzy
Cottage Garden quote:
"What is the secret of the cottage garden's charm? Cottage gardeners are good to their plots, and in the course of years they make them fertile ... But there is something more and it is the absence of any pretentious 'plan,' which lets the flowers tell their story to the heart." William Robinson, 1883
susan
Suzy - See what you can do for a picture. I really am stuck on the seeds being viable. Most perennial grasses seeds take a long time to ripen, otherwise annual ryegrass sound close. certainly there are some management plans to prevent seeds from germinating.
this site is good
http://www.turf.uiuc.edu/weed_web/index.htm
Dave - shhhh
This message was edited Nov 16, 2006 6:27 AM
Suzie, I feel for your grass problem. I wish you all the luck.
Deb, very nice walkway work. I disagree tha tyour beds are waaaay too sparse. They looked very nice from the pic but I understand not being satisfied until you're satisfied.
Good Morning all DGers
Love that quote Susan :)
I guess our 100 year old dear friend's garden looked so organized because it had this flow to it that just felt so warm and wonderful. I have years of memories from this place. It's quiet (most of the time) and the peace and quiet serenity of the Puget sound (Wa. state, on Whidbey Island)is what makes it so cottagey too. It's one of those places that a camera can't adequately photograph. One word: Picturesque. And the woman that tends the garden (100 years old) is one of the kindest, most giving of herself, people I have ever met in my entire life. Her garden keeps her young. she looks 80, or even less. You tell her so and she just smiles. Once she was pruning her shrubs and accidently pushed her Lifeline button into the branch. Weren't the paramedics surprised to find an older woman pruning trees! They surprised her too.
Deb, looking at my brick walks, you would know that you did an exellent!!! job with yours. Sparse the first year is good. What would you do next year if you couldn't plant more? :)) I love the fence too. All in all it's very nice!
Thanks Dave, it sure caught my eye. Smiling at you and Al.
Suzy, the squirrels don't bother. I have grape hyacinth, not too many tulips, daffodils and lilies.
I think Clara Curtis Daisies would fit in to a cottage bed.
Sally
DebinSC, that looks very cottagey to me. Very Nice. The house makes a difference too. But again, I have my own permanent imprint :0)
Great story, magnolialover.
Illoquin, I want a picket fence, too! But I'm pushing the edge in this neighborhood by having pulled up sections of sod to put in flowers. There is just something sacred to Texan non-gardeners about lawns! It's ridiculous! It's worse than high school football!
brigidlily, flowers are so much nicer than lawn. I think lawn people are their own kind. Grasses can be nice, but only complimentary to flowers ;0)
Amen. Like a nice tablecloth to set off a Thanksgiving feast.
Like whipped cream on pumpkin cheesecake.
Deb, you have a wonderful start to your cottage garden. The brick path is great and I like your fence and arbor. A garden really does take years to fully develop. After 18 years in the same place, mine still has sparse spots and is always undergoing change. That is the fun part of gardening.
Susan
Like whipped cream and white chocolate shavings on top of a white mocha!
Susan: The "absence of any pretentious plan" sure describes mine! :) Still searching for that year round look, though.
Thanks everyone for the kind and encouraging words about my garden and the brick walk.
Suzy: No mortar, just alot of sand. It settled in real well, though. Still pretty stable - no wobbly bits.
I wonder if "that year round" look is possible! I doubt it.
I'll settle for a few weeks of perfection. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Thank heaven it's a process, and not a result!
year round is what we hang art for. the art in the garden is under construction daily so with growth and death or dormancy, changes occur. isn't that the fun of watching to see what happens next in that area?
I agree Deb, no one could ever accuse my gardens of being pretentsiously planned.
No kidding on the pretensious planning! But I could use a little planning, sort of "humble planning"...and you, ladies and gents, are my chief advisors!
Deb, It really is a great path -- looks just perfect as a matter of fact.
To all the people who want the year-round floral opulence and year-round splendour -- I have a feeling it is not possible without some property and staff. All those important English Cottage Garden designers had giant greenhouses and giant areas of bare ground for seedlings. They had a nursery (and I don't mean a baby plant nursery in this case, more like a garden center nursery LOL) and staff putting blooming things in and a pulling non-blooming things out.
Suzy
Not that it's readily apparant when you walk through my garden -- talk about a "work in progress," it definitely has that rough, unfinished look! -- but I do actually have a plan. I've even been known to plan the layout of plants within a bed pretty carefully, mostly so I know what I've got room for when I'm planning purchases... I spend a lot of the winter with catalogs, making lists and drawings on graph paper! Of course, those plans are definitely subject to change once I have a flat of pots and a trowel in my hand... but it really helps me keep from planting too many things in inappropriate spaces and lets me focus on planting one area at a time.
Then again, "the best laid plans..." I read somewhere that Berlandia (Chocolate Daisy) only got 18 inches tall, so I thought it would be wonderful in front of my Echinaceas that get to almost 3 feet... Well, the Chocolate Daisies were lovely, bloomed their heads off all summer (and from wintersown seed the same year, too), and grew nearly 4 feet tall! LOL, I think I'll be moving them...
Critter, laughing over the planning, I do that too, and the other story, when plant and trowel are in hand. I do that too!
I had the Berlandia for a few years. I really liked it. Just a faint whiff of chocolate and I had to get on my knees to smell it. Mine got maybe 2 1/2' tall. It just didn't come up one year and no seedlings that I could see. I'll definately order another!
I really got interested in Dianthus last year. Another plant I had years ago. I went for all scented last year. I ordered a pineleaf one from High Country Gardens and loved the deep red color. I think I lost it too.
Don't forget the lilies for your scented garden :0)
Magnolia, I'm on Whidbey Island, too, and wish I knew that lady. I envision myself tending my gardens here on the island when I'm 100, too, but I suspect my kids won't let me - they are already trying to figure out where I would be happiest and still close enough to them that they could "take care of me" . . . and I'm only 62 and in excellent health! I'm glad they care so much, but I'm in better shape than either of my two daughters or sons-in-law!
Murmer, suggest they move to your neighborhood!
Glad you are healthy! I too plan on being in my hundreds and gardening!
Murmur, she is outside of Oak Harbor. You are very close to her. How amazing is that? Have to agree with Billyporter, in that they should move to your neighborhood. Ahhhh, Whidbey! Orcas, gardens & water. Now that is the life. Am I showing that I am green with envy? Just do me a favor and appreciate your lovely place for all that it is. One of the most precious places...
Our friend would say, "you ain't seen nothin' yet, Ms. 62!"
billyporter, don't order another Chocolate Daisy -- I have lots of seeds to share from mine! I wintersowed the seeds last February and the plants got huge and bloomed their first year, which I think is unusual for perennials.
Oh, and for anybody trying to find it in PF, I typo'd... It's Berlandiera lyrata, http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1605/index.html. I have to say, I sniffed hard and could never make out any chocolate scent... but everybody's nose is different! It smelled like *something* but just not chocolate (to me).
Here's a photo... please ignore how the grass got out of hand along the edge of the beds this summer!
gorgeous! That ones defiately worthy of the wish list.
carol