Install paths first, THEN your plants. Flagstone path fading into woodchip path, above, amplifies the effect of moving from one garden room to another.
Repetition of plant materials, color, pots, & paths create architecture of landscapes.
Double axis. Path, below, leads from backyard to frontyard.
Above, look close. It's same path as top pic, taken from opposite direction. DOUBLE AXIS..
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Notes: pics taken yesterday in my garden. I prefer SCRUFFY landscape styling for my personal garden. Once blooms, above, fade hand pruning begins. Paths become more prominent. Is this important? Why? Landscapes with the average American paid maintenance crew have a neat but depressing, & property lowering, gas blown & electric pruned look.
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The look of cheap unskilled labor. Time is money hence gas/electric landscape style prevails. Sadly, a look considered the proper American standard. Alexis de Tocqueville, circa 1831, was all too correct about Americans.
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Why sad? The look promotes sales not landscaping. Selling lawns needing chemicals & regular mowing, annuals needing replanting 2X/year, 10' plants designed under 3' windows needing major regular pruning, plants/lawns needing an irrigation system, & the promise of a no care landscape for $25/week. What a deal, $25 bucks for a space many times larger than a home's interior with a $75/week maid.
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Why not choose a landscape design: requiring no chemicals, no irrigation system, no annuals, less pruning, 50%-75% less mowing, and shades your home in summer/blocks winter winds (major hvac savings) while improving property value?
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I feel like Alice Waters must have felt decades ago. Like her, I won't quit.
12 comments:
Everythimg you say makes sence.
I guess I can cut back my
forysthia after it bloomd. Tara I have 2 wisteria one is 10 yrs
the other never bloomed. I asked
around and was told some never bloom. Is that true? Your tard is beautiful.
yvonne
Great post. My gardens are relaxed that's for sure. :-)
FlowerLady
Fully agree with you, even if different country on my mind :) still global fashions, petrochemical concerns and global marketing efforts.
I left all behind and going forward VERY low maintenance garden :)
I have no annuals. I plant perennials and small shrubs in containers and transplant into the garden at the end of the season. I have no grass only paths and stone raised beds. I have acres of leaves in the fall. I compost what I can and our city collects yard waste and composts the rest. I have no gas equipment and like you most pruning (even the yews) is done by hand. It's a form a zen meditation. It took me 20 years to get this and at 60 I can't believe I've done this stone work. It always makes me happy.
Oh how I wish I could instantly transform my open side lot to a lush garden, we're slowly working on it. Last year the grapes went in alongside our home made arbor.
see link: http://chershots.blogspot.com/2009/07/arbor-is-done-next-project-weve-been.html
Oh how I dream of lush gardens like that to fill in our side lot. Last year for starters, we built and arbor and planted grapes. It's a start.
http://chershots.blogspot.com/2009/07/arbor-is-done-next-project-weve-been.html
Beautiful! And it's so important to consider the difference between wildlands, a wildscaped garden, with good design, and a boring over-manicured garden.
So, I'm with you. Though I did grow some annuals from seed this year, just for the fun of it.
Beautiful Tara...I just want to get lost in it all and stay there! Agree, neat can be depressing...a garden needs poetry. My guess is that yours does !
Jeanne:)
Oops - forgot to mention that previous owners left a lot, a whole lot of old bricks here. . . just doing like in your book, soldiering the edges w/the old brick and pea gravel.
You inspire me & I think maybe my husband, too. This is the easiest & cheapest path we've ever put in!
I forgot to add, that from this post I got what double axis is! clearly and perfectly - thanks! I thout about it while working entire afternoon in the garden - like to tire myself recently...
I love the scruffy look of your garden. Want my garden to be more carefree gorgeous. But I am surrounded by men and their big machines who love to mow and make things tidy with blades and gasoline.
lisa of Hedgerow Farm (aka Pecan Orchard)
The flagstone path invites you to explore further. Makes you anticipate what is on the other end! I have a path similar to that leading off my patio. I need to work on the "other side" because right now it is just a lawn. If I only had some of that "cheap labor" to put to good use doing my bidding! I would create an enchanting area where I could plant til my heart was content!
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