The Bird Garden

Cottage Garden style with the bird houses (baby birds every single year), and the bird bath. This is a sunny area with western exposure. Anchored by the lilacs on the left (in full bloom as I am typing this, this is another area that has evolved with time. Jasmine now climbs a trellis, and I'm thinking about putting in a pond where the bird bath is. I have one farther out and I think it would be nice to have one closer to the house (too). But it's been one of the more successful areas in terms of the overall look. Weeding has been a problem though.

Shed view

What color to paint the door? Green? White? Blue? Black? Red? Mural?

Went with black door. White window-pane mirror

Penelope Hobhouse's 10 Rules of Landscaping:

1. Rely on Geometry
2. Enclose an Oasis, create a paradise.
3. Build rooms with plants - trees, shrubs...
4. Foliage before flowers.
5. Reach for the Sky - trellises, arbors and climbers
6. Plants not politics. No PC.
7. Frame the View - borrow scenery from the neighbors.
8. Repeat Color and Texture.
9. Repeat Simple plant shapes - rows of trees, etc.
10. Unify with ground covers
(Garden Design - she (Penelope Hobhouse) comments that "In America - the natural setting for each garden assumes greater importance than it does in Europe," and "Every Garden should have some element of mystery in its design."

Related:
10 more rules:
My 10+ rules (of landscaping)

10 more rules:

1. Never go out without a notebook
2. Find one mentor - or many.
3. Do your homework.
4. Trust Your Own Experience.
5. Don't get hung up on plants - A Garden is bigger than all that.
6. Never think you'll get it right the first time.
7. Encourage Self-Seeders.
8. Remember, Sunlight and Shade are Design Elements.
9. Avoid Fussiness.
10. Focus on the Garden YOU want.
(Garden Design's Dorothy Kalins' observations of Penelope Hobhouse)
Related:
Penelope Hobhouse's 10 Rules of Landscaping:
My 10+ rules (of landscaping)

My 10+ rules (of landscaping)

1. First, PLANT evergreens to the north (feng shui, good luck)
2. Second, find a place to put in RASPBERRIES and strawberries
3. START with one small area and build an overall plan gradually.
4. Put in plants that make you HAPPY - lilacs, hollyhocks, yellow roses...
5. GENEROUS beds. At least 3' wide w/5' preferred. Too small beds are the worst and most common mistakes.
6. Find out which way the wind blows and put in scented plants so that the scent blows IN to your space.
7. Divide and propagate
8. ALWAYS take a camera and/or a notebook on Garden Tours.
9. BUY throughout the seasons, you'll automatically have year round bloom.
10. SUBSCRIBE to every magazine. Inspiration is where you find it.
11. Stay FLEXIBLE. Ideas about which plants to put where, and how to treat an area, for example, will change due to trial and error and your own changing tastes.
12. KEEP some kind of record of what you planted where and when. A Journal? Why not?
13. Look at it from different perspectives - get up on the roof, for example.
14. Take pride in the results. Enjoy the failures, too. It's a process.
15. Don't be afraid to rip it out and move it somewhere else.

Related:
Penelope Hobhouse's 10 Rules of Landscaping:
10 more rules:

A Garden is

...a place that serves as an art project, an organic produce market, a spiritual practice, a pharmacy.

It offers ongoing lessons in ecology, biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology...

Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time...

Gardening is creativity on a grand Utopian scale. We consult a nonexistent compass and so set off on a journey to Eden, which actually ends when we encounter a sense of place.
(Excerpts from Why We Garden: Cultivating a Sense of Place by Jim Nollman 1994)

Perspective

I never planted a single thing at our other house. Well, maybe a lone bare root rose received as a Christmas gift. We believed we would only be there for a short time so what was the point?

The fact that we ended up staying there for 10 years and never put down roots, literally or figuratively seems somehow bereft and desolate. It's human nature to leave a mark - our stamp on the land - from cave paintings to today's wallpaper... and gardening, the planting of things fulfills a need that cannot be articulated. It's well documented, but no mere writing can truly express the phenomenon, the link - to the past, to the future, to the earth and to the powerful life force of the planet.

I can't say I am well in sync with the world now because I "garden." Far from it... today's society allows us to live a life that is far removed from reality, completely out of touch with food sources, and the pace does not allow much time for introspective connectivity.

But I am closer than I was. At least now I have contact with the touchstone.

In the beginning I set out to "landscape" the front yard... to create a sort of proverbial showpiece American front yard... make it nice for the neighbor across the street to look at. I did not call it "gardening" because I intended to do it once and not revisit it... I did not want to be a "gardener" which carried with it connotations of weeding, of gaudy annuals, and a firm footing in a "middle class" ordinary-ness.

I wanted something different.

I also found the prospect of beginning the project to be daunting - bloom times, planting depths, water needs, foliage compatibility... the designer in me did not want to fail. It had to be perfect (something I've gotten over).

So I studied, and learned. Primarily from magazines. But I also learned that you just have to START. Maybe you couldn't go wrong. I learned when I planted the first plant, a jasmine from Shirley, and I learned from watching Logan plant his "fort" - a hole in the tall grass in the back yard. And when it bloomed and the sun shone through the godetia, it was a thing of beauty. And it was inspirational. If something so small made such a difference, maybe there was hope.

And so it began. Planting, digging, planning, and gradually shaping the structure of the yard.

Solving problems like hiding the chain link fence, making a narrow pathway interesting, keeping dogs out, and then in, creating privacy and play areas led to design solutions scribbled on napkins and scraps of paper. Design solutions became a working plan which evolved over the years.

Part scrapbook, part sketchbook, and part diary, that process is chronicled and encapsulated within the pages of these garden journals.

The first book is falling apart, having been opened too many times. I think about re-binding it. Maybe someday. For now, it will be saved here.

Gardenscaping

An experiment in transferring handwritten garden journals to an online format.

Cover: Inside

Frostie and ET sleeping on the couch. Both schmeezers (Siamese Crosses), Frostie was a barn kitten, and ET was a wild kitten I managed to catch, and keep.

Cover

A plain black artist's sketchbook became three. The first one is falling apart now, and in case it cannot be rebound, I'm transferring the pages to this digital online format. Which will last longer? Be interesting to see.

Getting started - The original goal - improve curb appeal for the neighbor's sake. Create a livable environment in the backyard.

Inhibitors - Fear. Landscape design is a whole 'nuther discipline, involving knowledge and complexities - what blooms when? combining foliage and textures and structures, etc. Lack of attachment - we never planted any flowers at our previous residence because 'we'd only be there for a short time.'

Plan of attack - I call it landscaping as opposed to gardening because I only plan to do it once... plant it and move on to the next thing, not come back and weed and tend. Plants have to be hardy or perish. NO babying.

Results - Pretty good. Feel more grounded here, it did evolve into gardening in a way. It is a life-changing process. The kids say "Never sell this house."

2007

2005

2003

2002

2001