Garden Inspirations

I used to pour over garden magazines when I was younger looking for ideas but seldom found anything that fit my garden space, still it was nice to drool over beautiful gardens and choice garden plants in front of the fireplace in a comfy chair in the dead of winter .

One thing I would still like to attempt before I'm no longer able to garden is to create a succulent border or, I have a lattice wall where I would like to take a stab at growing succulents along the top. Thomas Hobbs did this with a wall at a house he once had. I have two of his books 'Shocking Beauty' and 'The Jewel Box Garden', talk about eye candy. I've been to a couple of his lectures on gardening not only is he a superb plantsman, he a hoot to listen to. The few times I managed to get to his nursery on the mainland never disappointed, always came home with something special. For anyone interested, google images of his gardens.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=thom...2WMKHWGTCyYQ_AUICSgC&biw=1255&bih=739#imgrc=_

What gardens have inspired you, any pictures?

Annette

Beautiful images Annette! Those would be fun books to curl up with by the fire.

I go to the local garden tours nearly every year. Some are average and a little ho-hum, but there is one that makes the tour about every 5 years that is fun. Not really a show garden, but filled with interesting plants and a lot of whimsey hidden about. It's more of a country type garden that is evidence of the owners love of gardening and sense of humor.

As far as garden-ERs that inspire, what I'm learning about you fits the bill perfectly. You remind me a lot of my mom, who wasn't the educated gardener you are, but you share her humorous approach to life. Thanks for posting on TEG.

@thistlebloom I laugh at you calling me an educated gardener, once when I was on a judging course the instructor handing back our test papers thought I had a degree in Horticulture just because I scored high, 98/100 on the test he gave, I just about fell out of my seat laughing, I replied, no degree just a gal with an inquisitive mind who loves playing in the dirt.
I do admit I know a little bit about a lot of things but not a h... of a lot about anything in particular.
Over the years I've researched anything that has interested me, my method of gardening is still trial and error, if it doesn't work, mums the word.

As to education, I didn't have the luxury of finishing high school, circumstances made it necessary I quit school and get a job, luckily back then jobs were easy to come by and at 16 I found a job that paid union wages so things started to look up.

I didn't have the luxury of my own garden until after I was married, I could have written a book titled 'The Frustrated Gardener' back then. My first garden amounted to a packet of nasturtium seeds and an old tablespoon for a trowel, we move before they bloomed....I started my second garden, we were still penny pinching, someone gave me a box of dahlia tubers, I thought I had died and gone to heaven, I planted them with tender loving care, the grew into beautiful plants, you guessed it, sigh....moved before they flowered. This is when we went up to Ocean Falls, hubby just out of the Navy lucked out and finally found a good paying job, you have to move to where the work is. I struggled with a few things in my postage stamp garden, (we rented a two bedroom house off the company he worked for) hydrangeas and rhodos didn't mind the non stop rain but forget anything else. This is when I was in my African violet faze, indoor gardening it was for 6 years.

Then we moved again... this time to the house we are still in. Young family 3 kids, stay at home mom not much left over to spend on a garden with the exception of a few packets of seeds and plants the neighbors gave me. One day out of the blue I got a phone call from a local nursery just up the road from us asking if I would like to work for them in their busy season. I said I could only give them hours when my kids were in school, they said that would be alright. This is when my education really started, the owner, a crusty old Englishman took me under his wing and taught me so much. I worked for him for years part time, longer hours when our daughter was old enough to start dinner when she got home from school but she always left the gravy making to me when I got home, she hadn't managed to overcome making lump-less gravy yet, but she was a wiz at everything else, she was 11 at the time.

Back in the 70's I joined the local Horticultural Society, the wealth of knowledge I found there was unbelievably good, most of these gardeners have passed on but for those of us who were fortunate enough to be in their company we learned so much.

So guys, now you know a little more about me, I do ramble on but it's too hot for me outside right now soooooo here I sit bending your ears .

Annette

Annette, I'm a vegetable gardener.

Despite the years of work as a wholesale florist, despite the years as a rose grower, despite those long-ago years farming - I am a vegetable gardener.

At one time, and before I had such large gardens and certainly before I was so involved in a non-gardening career, my garden was all in beds and weed-free. Yes, I can hardly imagine it now ... altho there were recent seasons when it was all back in beds; then the landscape changed again. I am sure there has not been a single year in nearly 40 years when it has been weed-free. I remember those early seasons fondly .

Everything has not gone perfectly and a perfect vegetable garden only exists in my imagination. Even distorted by the decades of time, I know that my garden wasn't perfect, way back then. There is only that image in my mind.

Looking back today at the early written inspiration for my gardening, I discovered that there is a fairly new book out there about Alan Chadwick. I believe that I was introduced to him reading books and articles by John Jeavons. This new book is by philosopher Paul Lee and called, appropriately, "There Is a Garden in the Mind: A Memoir of Alan Chadwick and the Organic Movement in California."

John Jeavons wrote that book, "How to Grow More Vegetables." I read it when it was first out. In my mind, that garden has always existed but, you know, I'm not sure it has anywhere else. It probably doesn't exist even at his Willits California home.

Steve

Steve, when we finally settled here my garden was half and half, half decorative and half veggies, never have I been completely weed free, close but no cigar. When the kids left home the veggie garden except for a few beans, tomatoes and cucumbers was given over to the decorative side of gardening. Over the years I have had collections of quite a few different plants, chrysanthemums, fuchsias, begonias, dahlias, clematis, succulents etc. I used to exhibit and then took a 3 year course to become a horticultural judge. I have judged vegetable classes but my interest at the time was more on the floral side and judged more open and decorative classes than veggies.

Once you become a judge you have to stand your ground and have nerves of steel, I remember one night in particular I was judging the vegetable class at our local hort society parlor show. One of our members, a judge himself and happened to be one of the instructors on my judging course came over to do battle with me over his plate of tomatoes. He said how come I didn't give his plate of tomatoes a prize, they had already won a first at another show, were they not true to type, I said yes, were not the 3 tomatoes unblemished, a good color and uniform in size, I said yes, when they were cut in half they showed numerous sections without a lot of pulp and seeds, I said yes,,,, don't you think they deserves a prize, I said no, he was taken aback, Don, I said what did you tell us in judging class, if a tomato is soft to touch and when cut it looks watery and glassy, it's over the hill. I was just judging the way you taught me. It had been the perfect tomato the week before and he had hoped his holding them in his fridge until our parlor show he'd pull in another first, it didn't work and he had to agree.

Now I still have my flower borders and beds but the last few years I've been growing more vegetables, next year I hope to have a small corn patch, one flower bed is going to be dug, plants given away, manure and compost dug in this fall, then a good covering with straw to keep the weeds down, all ready to be planted in the spring.

Annette

I love your stories.

Annette I could sit on the porch shelling peas with you, listening to you talk about gardening.

My gardening inspiration was my Daddy. He was the son of a share cropper, was pulled out of school to work in the fields and made to chop cotton at 10 years old for 50 cents a day. The hard work didn't sour him on growing things, he loved the soil and all that it brought forth. He was organic before organic was cool. My earliest memories are of toddling behind my Daddy in his garden, barefoot in the soft soil.

I love the pictures in the link you posted. How beautiful, no wonder you like going to his nursery. My yard right now is white sand with a few weeds. The grass is sheep mowed. I want a pretty yard, but it will take a lot of work to get there. I have ideas....

@thistlebloom , I do ramble on at times I blame it on the hot weather that has me captive in the house. Supposed to be cooler and maybe rain tomorrow, one can only hope.

@baymule , I've told the story before of how it was my grandfather that inspired me to become a gardener,.My garden is no screamin h... right now, being laid up for 6 weeks didn't help but hey there's always next year. My flower garden peaks the end of May beginning of June then it seems to be on a downward spiral until fall cleanup, it might not have much color then but at least it looks somewhat neat. Looks even better if we get a covering of snow in the winter, hides a multiple of sins, stuff that I didn't get done, you know, out of sight out of mind .

Where we were eating tomatoes the beginning of July last year we still haven't had a ripe tomato big enough to make a sandwich with, just one ripe Indigo Rose cherry. Dh brought it in, cut it in half on the breadboard, sigh.... so sad... two grown adults standing over one poor little cut in halve cherry tomato, salivating in anticipation of that first taste of a garden ripened tomato. Beets aren't quite ready yet but we've had a fair amount of cucumbers, lots of beans and I have several Yacon plants doing well, harvest the tubers in the fall, I didn't grow Oca this year, didn't particularly like the flavor but the yacon will be crisp, sweet and juicy. It will be another year or so before the sea kale will be big enough for a taste and I have a couple of skirret plants out in the weeds somewhere, another perennial veggie from a different era. I love trying different things, keeps life interesting.

I would have loved to have known your daddy, he sounds like my kind of people, the salt of the earth. If only more people were like him the world would be a better place.
Annette

I think Larisa's garden is absolutely beautiful! I tend to love a wild looking and less structured garden scape...not a fan of succulents much and lean more towards softer, airier looking flowers, vines and plants. Also not a fan of all greenery looking stiff things like hostas, shrubbery and the like.

I have a tendency to love this....



....as opposed to this.....

@Beekissed , me too .
Taken before we filled the pond in...it was getting to be too much work keeping it looking half decent so two years ago we filled it in topped with gravel and put our chiminea and a few herb pots there.
.

A rambunctious bed just to the left of this.


And just around the corner a totally different view. I think my garden has a split personality.

I have a totally undisciplined garden, it just evolved without much interference from me .
It's the plants themselves that interest me rather than design, one should garden to please themselves not others, formal, cottage, xeriscape, whatever turns you on.

Annette