I am going to post pictures in small groups so that they are manageable for me. First, the large front borders. I built these starting with nothing but almost pure fine sand in the fall of 2004. I added about 100 yards of not-too-mature horse manure, the cheapest local organic material I could find. I planted lots of transfer woody and herbaceous plants in these beds in the fall of 2004, only to see most of them engulfed with 8' weeds and die in a hot dry summer of 2005. But I cleaned all that out last fall, and this is how this area looked almost exactly 1 year ago to the day:

After planting many hundreds of perennnial plugs last spring, 1 year after the above picture, same view:

And a Cedrus libanii stenocoma (hardy z 5) that I moved, last fall:

and now

More front garden pictures:

I think these will become my favorite sunny areas of the garden. There is nothing like large garden planting areas THROUGH WHICH you walk on a path. Far more compelling to me than beds viewed across a lawn or other surface.

More to follow....

PS - 2004? Has it been that long? We moved into this house in July 2004 and I dug up and moved half my garden. I didn't realize you were doing it at the same time!

A......

I can't believe you could move that large cedar; just looked it up in my Dirr's and find it is something that I could grow here...surprised me. I love the purples and silvers and the grasses here and there. I am beginning to fall in love with grasses and love how you have used them.

What have you topped the path with? I can't tell if it is bark or pebbles. I too think the path curving through the beds is wonderful.

Thank you for the update, please keep them coming.

How large (length x width) is this area? I love the 'walk through' feel, that you are IN the garden rather than looking at it.

Thanks for posting, I always love your pictures.

More to come....gotta get on to bulb planting first......planted about 1000 bulbs in this area over the past few weeks...

A......

I just LOVE the swaths of silver/blue in the Cedrus area - so relaxing and refreshing, simply gorgeous!

Okay, when I move to my acreage over Milford-way (if I ever get through graduate school....) I'm coming to find you so I can contract with you to do MY gardens! LOL! (well, not really LOL - I'm kind of serious....)

No the front entry. Still very much in progress. A sentinel paperbark maple moved from my old garden (a bigger one stayed behind, though this one is happy and putting on 18" of growth a year...). There is a little meditation enclosed garden off the entry that is partly meant to be enjoyed from inside the house.

Last year:

This:

New entry to the back gardens. A new Fence and gate here separate the work area from the garden and give a sense of entry to the garden. This area goes into a gravel garden, and down below, what we call a "tea garden" (no, I don't drink tea but AM coffee and PM wine are great here). The tea garden is a hummingbird heaven. Yes we have problem here with iron in water, the rust is from an iron filter runoff which hopefully will be corrected next week

Tea garden path/patio

July Tea garden


October

my ...

stars ...

It's magnificent ... just a feast for the eyes, and can you imagine what it must be like to be there?

Brilliant ...

A......

After I have several large Norway maples removed this fall, I expect to have a lot more sun on one side and the back yard. I want to have gardens that you can walk through! :)

Thanks very much for sharing your photos. Hope you will post often. :-)

Lori

I have a question about when your plants mature. I see you don't really overplant, yet your plantings are close enough to keep weeds at bay. How often do you divide mature plants or do they find their natural size and tend to stay there?

I'm asking because I wondering if I should rejuvenate some mature phlox in particular by dividing. The clumps are enormous and bountiful in the pink and lavender varieties but my David (grin) phlox only blooms once early on and then fades. It is brown by September. And that is in more than one locaton. But I see other people's photos of David blooming happily at seasons end. Just wondering.

I have a question about when your plants mature. I see you don't really overplant, yet your plantings are close enough to keep weeds at bay. How often do you divide mature plants or do they find their natural size and tend to stay there?

I'm asking because I wondering if I should rejuvenate some mature phlox in particular by dividing. The clumps are enormous and bountiful in the pink and lavender varieties but my David (grin) phlox only blooms once early on and then fades. It is brown by September. And that is in more than one locaton. But I see other people's photos of David blooming happily at seasons end. Just wondering.

I especially love the first two pics in this thread, because they show a before and after. Makes me think some aspects of your garden are actually attainable! Do you have any pics that show stages in between those two pics? Gosh, we all want such a big piece of you, David! LOL, do you ever feel like a celebrity in here?

Great garden. The plants seem quite mature for just 2 years? Did you bring a lot of plants from the old garden?

Love the paperbark.

Marianne

In the other thread, I also have pictures of C. deodora 'Karl Fuchs', one that is about 15' tall and has been in the ground through 3 winters at the new place, through winter temps as low as -15F. That plant is planted in a very wind protected spot on the south side of the house. In the same temps, it has not even shown a brown needle once, whereas the supposedly hardier C. l. stenocoma did brown out some this past winter(but looked great by June).

Though C. deodora is generally accepted as only being z7 hardy, and I have heard of gardeners who had trouble keeping it in NC, this selection does seem to be hardier than average. I know of 2 other plants in this area that have been through 5 or more winters unscathed. And I supect that the longer the plant has been established, the better it will be able to recover from a hard winter. The conifer curator at Hidden Lake told me that the stenocoma there browned its needles in the first five years, and has looked pristine through every winter since.

I bought plugs from Bluestone and from a couple of wholesalers that would not be available to the general retail public. But Bluestone has loads of stuff.

Josh