# How does your garden grow?



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

If you love gardens - and I know one or two members who do - this is a thread on which to post photos or talk about your glories and your problems. 

I look forward to any posts and pictures. :tiphat:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Our garden is looking lovely at the moment - just when we're hoping to sell it (we've had an offer - just working through & hoping our buyer doesn't drop out).

I like gardens but I don't like weeding much, so my main plan has always been to cut down on areas requiring weeding by sticking some paving slabs down. I always welcome self-sown plants which are colourful, though, and don't regard those as weeds.

Here's my side garden where santolina that I planted as a cutting has spread wonderfully, interspersed with valerian that decided it wanted a home with us.

Beside it, in the hollow wall, is snow-in-summer - that grows so prolifically everywhere, but I love it, so no worries.

Behind it, you can see a rosemary bush that I use in a favourite lamb dish, plus two daisy bushes that Mum grew for me from cuttings taken from her own plant (Olearia Scilloniensis). They are lovely, but I have reluctantly decided not to take cuttings for my own new garden, because things are so uncertain and we might have to rent for a while, plus these daisy bushes don't grow well in the north away from the seaside.

Right at the back you can see a golden yew that is Taggart's favourite tree.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Here's a paved area at the back where I hoped to stop weeds growing where I couldn't reach them, under the yellow eleagnus bush that grew huge. However, over the winter, Taggart cut it right back - he loves chopping and hacking, *his* sort of gardening!

On this photo, the eleagnus to the left and the cotoneaster conspicuus decorus to the right are merely well-behaved shadows.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Here's a view of the Cotoneaster Conspicuous Decorus in full bloom - I planted it as a dwarf shrub, but clearly it hadn't read the manual. The wild bees love it.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Finally (for today) - 
What I am thinking of doing, if we do manage to get the house we want to buy, is planning a small memorial garden for Mum with the plants that she loved: any sort of daisy (her name was Margaret), heather, lavender, sisyrinchium, Welsh poppies, primroses and Virginia stock.

I'll leave it till next year, though, to see where the sun shines and doesn't, and to see what grows well in the gardens round about.

The back garden is simply a lawn, fairly small, and oddly shaped because of the weird boundary fence. I will keep some grass in the middle as a broad path.

I just hope it all happens - you know how fraught house moving can be, and it can all break down at the last minute.

But the idea is good, anyway.

Here's our little front pot, which has in it **** red edge, little daffodils (now gone), erica (Springwood white), a pelargonium because Mum loved them, and a little viola in pale blue and yellow - Mum's favourite colour combination for flowers.

I hope to plant something similar when and if we get to Yorkshire.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

My main garden love is roses, before I moved into this over 60s flat I had a corner plot house with over 40 roses, the new owners, a group of Chinese, have ripped out all bar about 4 of them and replaced the trellis with a 6' high wooden fence. All I have now is a few patio boxes with 7 roses and some summer bedding. I also help out with a border at one end of the grounds, somewhat overshadowed by a 12' privet hedge. There's a few roses there already but probably more to come.

As well as photos of my own garden I have hundreds taken at Mottisfont abbey gardens, the home of the National collection of old roses, I may be tempted into posting a few of those. For now though a few pics of what was my garden.








The front trellis, from nearest, Complicata, Bridge of sighs, Ena Harkness, Seagull and Crepuscule,








Collage of blooms, from top left, Open Arms, Rhapsody in bliue, Fred Loads, Brother Cadfael, Golden Showers, Baron Girod de l'Ain, Complicata, Ferdinand Pichard and Graham Thomas








Ferdinand Pichard, note the branch is trained horizontally, this produces far more flowers than if the branch just goes straight up in which case there will only be flowers at the top of the branch, this is sometimes referred to as "pegging out" an alternative to training horizontally is to arch the branches over and peg the end to the ground, if there are a lot of branches this produces almost a dome.








Mottisfont, general view across one of the 3 walled gardens.








Mottisfont, Complicata growing over an old apple tree, the flowers can be up to 5" across and it is lightly scented, but being originally a wild rose it only blooms for a few weeks in June


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

^^^^^

Lovely, Mike! Thanks for sharing. :tiphat:

I love the bottom picture particularly - I think wild roses and foxgloves are a fabulous combination.



Dorsetmike said:


> My main garden love is roses...
> 
> View attachment 119745
> 
> Mottisfont, Complicata growing over an old apple tree, the flowers can be up to 5" across and it is lightly scented, but being originally a wild rose it only blooms for a few weeks in June


PS White foxgloves I particularly love, and I can see some large blue pale campanula, but I don't know what the white flower behind the rose bush is - looks gorgeous, though!


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

Current work in progress, the residents bit of border here, The resident who started this is now in a care home so some of us have stepped in to halt the progress of weeds and a few other problems, last year we only did the watering - with cans. We can't do much at a time, 2 of us are past 80, the other in her 60s, so it's just a bit at a time.

To ease the watering chore we now have a 50M hose reel, which reaches the tap half way down the car park. Parts of the hedge have a fair amount of dead wood, we're trying to disguise those by a couple of planters and some climbing roses; someone in the past had planted a couple of leylandii which were taking over and smothering other things, one of them has succumbed to cutters and a saw, the other is scheduled for the same next week.








Right hand end, new planter with trellis, has some sweet peas to climb plus we will train an existing rose








Middle bit, remaining leylandii pushing rose Arthur Bell forward, will be coming out next week








Left hand end, shed in the background








The gap where the larger Leylandii was, it was completely obscuring a climbing rose, Crepuscule, which hopefully will recover. The purple rose is "Perpetual blue" though even when going over only gets to a darker hue. I've yet to find the name for the red one to its left.








The 3 tier planter at the left end, only recently planted up, it has some trailing plants so should look good when they get established, and to the right part of one of the trellis which has another climbing rose at its base, we have 2 more trellis to put in.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

We used to have a garden, but we live on a half acre backed up to woods, and squirrels and other creatures thought the fruits of our labor should go to them, so we moved our garden indoors.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

some roses picture I took for Dorsetmike (are those tea roses?), and a blossoming raspberry
When I was a kid, my parents had many roses. My father is an agricultural engineer. During communism, the engineers were burgois and many a worker was paid more then them. So my parents had to graft roses to increase their income. So we had hundreds of roses of all colors and shapes. I liked especially the black roses. And there were always countless rose chafer beetles on the flowers.


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

No pretty flowers to show you, but when I moved here two years ago my wife and I wanted a little more backyard privacy, so I planted these seven. They are still young and it will take 10 years before they grow in and give us the effect we want. They don't look like much but I ordered these online and planted them myself. Saved a money and I'm so proud they survived. Of course growing stuff in Central Florida is pretty easy compare to most of the other sections of the country.








Here is an East Palatka Holly on the left and two Ligustrum Privets on the right.








On the left Thuja Arborvitae 'Green Giant' and Knock Out Rose tree. On the right are two Nellie Stevens Hollys.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Very nice, Pyotr! I am all for green and more privacy. It looks like they are doing well. Just be sure to play the trees some Tchaikovsky or Debussy (etc.) for them every now and then to keep them happy.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I live on the bottom floor of a theee story apartment. I have a small garden. There is a ground crew that come once a week to mow the small patch of grass and trim the edges and sometimes trim the trees and bushes.

Azalea 









I have some container pots too. Lilies









Petunias planted this year









Looking back toward the building. In total I have about 30 to 40 square meters. 300 to 400 square feet. Not too bad for an apartment. In the summer there is enough foliage that no one can look into my place. And it's quiet. (And I cycle or walk to work)


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Our garden features a vine, which this year we hope will yield lots of grapes. Instead of grass we have pebbles (with a special underground), so no mowing is needed anymore. Lately, because of the wet weather this year, this pebble field has been sprouting lots of wild flowers, English grass for instance. The roots of these flowers cannot enter into the soil, but still they seems to do well among the pebbles. Because of the amazing flowering we just let it grow & bloom. Later on we'll tear out all the wild bushes... (sorry, no photos).


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I'm surrounded by wild stuff that I keep having to cut back, blackberries, cherry plums, willows, ivy, poison oak, etc. After CA floods things are growing 3x faster so it's been a busy spring.

Not much to tend but some grass I have to mow sometimes. One redwood tree is not in a good spot and gets dehydrated so I have to keep the saplings cut. The good new is that my pear trees are heavy with fruit. the bad news is that the fruit draws yellow-jackets... and so on...


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

My favourite rose, Ferdinand Pichard, introduced 1910, strong scent, disease resistant. grows to about 5'+. I had one planted by the front door, got a noseful when going in or out. This is a "close up" of one I posted in an earlier post

View attachment 120001


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

My garden grows well. It is mostly comprised of California native plants, like ceanothus and manzanita. Manzanita is quite possibly the easiest plant in the world to grow. I have several and they all are doing wonderfully. You can't overwater them, you can't underwater them. I love it. Ceanothus on the other hand I actually prefer, but they are tough. I just had to rip one out. So frustrating. It doubled in size this rainy season, had tons of flowers and shiny new leaves, then within the last couple weeks it started turning brown and wilting. I waited another week and it looked even worse, so I removed it  Throwing out a plant makes me sad. Especially when I don't understand what went wrong.

But I don't give up  Around here the best time to plant is the fall, and it was 103 degrees yesterday, so now I'm just trying to keep my plants alive during these hot dry months.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

My garden is best described as small and lush, inclined to be blitzed by Yorkshire winters, full of birds and bees, and haunted by lurid antirrhinums:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Pat Fairlea said:


> My garden is best described as small and lush, inclined to be blitzed by Yorkshire winters, full of birds and bees, and haunted by lurid antirrhinums:
> 
> View attachment 120006


One person's *lurid antirrhinums* are another person's *lovely snapdragons*. 

Fond memories of me aged four walking through the Museum Gardens in York with Mum, and she showed me how the petals worked to form a dragon's mouth.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Ingélou said:


> One person's *lurid antirrhinums* are another person's *lovely snapdragons*.
> 
> Fond memories of me aged four walking through the Museum Gardens in York with Mum, and she showed me how the petals worked to form a dragon's mouth.


Truth to tell, I'm very fond of antirrhinums, not least because I never plant or sow any, but simply shuffle around the self-sown ones. Other garden favourites are aquilegia and paeonia, though I'm learning to love astrantia varieties simply because they grow very well here!

Here's a bit of my garden, photographed in rather dull weather this morning:


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)




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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)

By the way, my favourite flower is Calla lily. It looks absolutely fabulous to me, they're perfect. I don't have any of them at the moment, but I'm working on that.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Vronsky said:


> By the way, my favourite flower is Calla lily. It looks absolutely fabulous to me, they're perfect. I don't have any of them at the moment, but I'm working on that.


That's gorgeous. I love Calla lilies, but we're at the wrong latitude on the wrong soil in the wrong microclimate to keep them alive!


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

Pat Fairlea said:


> My garden is best described as small and lush, inclined to be blitzed by Yorkshire winters, full of birds and bees, and haunted by lurid antirrhinums:
> 
> I love antirrhinums and also have lots of them in my garden. I particularly like watching the bees almost vanish inside them!


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

I had a lovely display of roses on the arch over the front gate a couple of weeks ago. They're the old fashioned variety called Ena Harkness, which have a wonderful fragrance.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Annied said:


> I had a lovely display of roses on the arch over the front gate a couple of weeks ago. They're the old fashioned variety called Ena Harkness, which have a wonderful fragrance.
> 
> View attachment 120568


I remember these roses from my childhood, growing profusely in my grandmother's garden. They're lovely.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Vronsky said:


> By the way, my favourite flower is Calla lily. It looks absolutely fabulous to me, they're perfect. I don't have any of them at the moment, but I'm working on that.


I like them too - and a bonus is that they grow 'wild', or at least spread themselves about freely, in my garden. For years I wondered what on earth they were, and when I saw a clump of them today, I couldn't remember what they were called.

So thanks for reminding me!


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Yesterday we made a day trip to Hook of Holland. While walking on the pier (they re-landscaped the surroundings into very British looking lawns along the Nieuwe Waterweg) we were surprised by the huge amount of dune flowers, especially Blueweed / Viper's bugloss. This year the June rains have left gardens of Eden everywhere...


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

It does seem to be a great year for Viper's Bugloss - Taggart & I saw lots of it growing on the clifftops at Portland Bill, where we went on holiday earlier this week. To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen it before out of books - certainly never in such profusion. It's a heavenly colour.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

@Annied Some Ena Harkness mingling with a white rambler call Seagull with a few Ferdinand Pichard behind on the right, and barely visible on the upper left a glimpe of Rhapsody in Blue

(Click image for larger)


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

My garden is growing apace at the moment. In particular, my lavender bush has shed its seeds all over the paving slabs and I have little seedlings popping up everywhere. I found 13 small pots (all I had), prised the seedlings gently out of the cracks and potted them up. Around lunchtime today I advertised them on my local Freecycle group. Within hours I've had 14 replies. All the originals have now been collected, but one person brought me more small pots and I have the promise of more pots when another member collects tomorrow. There are still plenty left in the paving cracks, so with luck, everyone will be able to have a seedling or two.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

*This is the bed by the front door that we call the scree bed because it's chock full of small rubble left by the builders. You can't dig far enough down to plant anything big, so we've kept it to small plants and bedding, got at our local market, the nursery attached to Castle Howard, and foxgloves and fleabane daisies acquired from mail order advertised in the newspaper.

PS - Click to enlarge. The pale yellow flowers visible in the bed on the other side of the path are 'white marigolds'. Obviously, they aren't white - but they're a lovely creamy shade and very prolific. It remains to be seen whether they'll self-seed and revert to the more natural bright colour.

*


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

I bought two Giant Sequoias off Amazon in April (5 inches high). I planted them out back and they're still alive. I'm surprised.

It's quite a conversation starter..


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

A few of this year's blooms


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

The yellow rose in our garden is still budding. And a marigold is out - started growing from seed in October. Marguerites are also still out, and a white geranium (pelargonium) in a pot is on its second flush of flowers. 

On the other hand, one of the gaillardias I put in has bought it, as it has no shelter from the wind; the other, in the shadow of a bushy Marguerite plant, is still flourishing.

I think I'll take a single yellow rosebud into the house to put on the Christmas dinner table.


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

Pyotr said:


> No pretty flowers to show you, but when I moved here two years ago my wife and I wanted a little more backyard privacy, so I planted these seven. They are still young and it will take 10 years before they grow in and give us the effect we want. They don't look like much but I ordered these online and planted them myself. Saved a money and I'm so proud they survived. Of course growing stuff in Central Florida is pretty easy compare to most of the other sections of the country.
> 
> View attachment 119776
> 
> ...


Recently added a new member to our backyard family:









The bush in the center is a weeping bottlebrush, which we planted eight weeks ago. Bright red bottlebrush flowers in appear from September to December and often sporadically throughout the year. (There is one flower visible in the front, it feels like a brush.) As you can see, there's a metal pole in the center and three wooden poles staked around it for the purpose of securing it from damaging winds(we had a hurricane yesterday, Elsa). These braces, I am told, will be required for three years.









The 'Green Giant' is doing well. The Knock Out Rose tree not so well, it's a very strange plant(it's the bush on the left). I read an article that claimed they are susceptible to a certain disease. It's still growing but I have to give it a lot of water to get a rose to bloom. What we end up doing is let it go into hibernation until we have company, then dump a bucket of water on it for a few days and it will bloom.

The holly tree in the center is not growing as fast as I would have liked. I may have over watered it and/or watered it at the wrong time of day(at night). It hasn't given us the privacy we had hoped for, yet. The one on the right is doing better.

The house that you see behind is not occupied for six months of the year. Snowbirds. So getting this "privacy" thing is not a big deal.


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