Monday, April 10, 2006

Monday, July 04, 2005

The Best Gardens Have A Gardener With A Vision

The Best Gardens Have A Gardener With A Vision
Here are a few photos of the south garden as it is during our third summer. My vision comes from wanting to have a landscape that is like a natural hillside in the region. Normally covered with grasses with spots of wild flowers lining the terrain. Not formal beds with carefully arranged patches of color. More broad strokes of color. Full canopy and understory trees with perennials that match the shade conditions. It took the neighbors some getting used to but they have come around. The lot has a lower portion and an upper portion that I continue to mow but the steep hillside was the first to go. Over the last two years I have planted some perennials from seed and this spring from the Hamilton County Parks Wildflower sale http://www.hamiltoncountyparks.org/ and Civic Gardens on Reading Rd. http://www.civicgardencenter.org. I'm continually trimming the grass back and encouraging the flowers and small trees to grow. Pleased with the result, there is no count for the time needed to have flowers really start to grow. Finally the Hollyhocks are blooming after two years. My thoughts for the headline come from a landscape book on Wrights' homes, "Wrightscapes" by Charles E Aguar and Berdeana Aguar. Frank seldom offered landscape plans for his houses. The best ones were tended by owners that had a vision and worked hard to achieve it. Here are a few pictures: http://www.lohre.com/chuck/boulterphotos/northwest070105.jpg. A view to the northwest with the Coreopsis in the foreground the Serviceberry on the right and the Hollyhocks behind. The Oak and the Deciduous Redwood we planted in the front yard are starting to grow rapidly. http://www.lohre.com/chuck/boulterphotos/east070105.jpg. A view to the east showing our first year's Christmas tree. Alongside of it is a volunteer Oak. Behind a Hackberry has also volunteered. Last spring we cleared this view of Honeysuckle. There are some Columbine further back.
http://www.lohre.com/chuck/boulterphotos/north070105.jpg This view gives a better sense of the strip of grasses and flowers on the hillside in the front. With the Serviceberry and the Bottlebrush Buckeye framing the view it does have the look I was searching for.
http://www.lohre.com/chuck/boulterphotos/northeast070105.jpg Janet and I planted two Variegated Dogwood Bushes along the hillside. They will get to be 5-6 feet tall. Behind it I've planted several Lilac bushes. It will be some time, but I look forward to them being 15 feet tall and sort of a globe of color in the spring as well as a contrast to the strip of Diablo Ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius 'Diablo') we planted to the east. All meant to break up the hugh concrete block wall which forms the terrace.BeckHardware.com

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