A pleasure garden.

Our dear friend/client suggested we come visit her gardens, which we designed and installed three years ago, because she felt they were looking more spectacular than usual. A committed Anglophile, she wanted a garden that felt like an English cottage garden and we were happy to make her garden fantasy a reality.

An initial site analysis to determine soil structure, texture, pH and nutrients will go some way to determining which plants are chosen.  We are sticklers for garden preparation, amending the soil with copious amounts of composted horse manure, and organic fertilizer. 

 This year, we fertilized the gardens again, before replacing the mulch, and the results surprised even us. Hosta leaves the size of a tennis court (slight exaggeration) do not grow by simply throwing in a few plants.

We create colour combinations that will maintain visual interest even when some of the plants are past flowering. This chartreuse leaved hosta, plays well against the darker foliage of the peony and will remain interesting long after the peonies have stopped flowering. Colour combinations that transform throughout the year,

Colour combinations that transform throughout the year, from the pastel shades of spring,

to the more vibrant colours of summer

 keep the garden interesting throughout the seasons.

We succeeded in mitigating the starkness of the white vinyl fence by planting a selection of climbing and shrub roses and clematis so that they would grow up, over and through the enclosure.

 We restricted the floral colour palette to white, pinks, blues, purples; combinations that create harmony, and added plants with chartreuse and silver foliage for contrast of color and texture.

For those of you with green fingers, we offer online garden design.

Garden consultation for a more hands on approach

and full service design and installation.

Summer is just a memory away

                                     

                                     

Meanwhile enjoy the winter sunlight illuminating the tree tops.

Feed the Birds

With the turning of the year and the lengthening days, our minds are drawn further still, to the warm spring days which beckon us to another year of outdoor in the garden. Here at Stonewell Farm, we are now firmly in the camp of leaving last year’s growth to overwinter in situ. This provides some succor to the feathered or fur clad wildlife that inhabit the gardens throughout the winter months, be it through protection from the weather, or our ever present kettle of hawks as with this Autumn Clematis and Boxwood.  Seedheads and dried stems can provide a source of food in their own right, as well as sheltering insects which provide another source of nutrition for wild birds.
                                                                                                                   
                                          

                   Autumn clematis (above) and Boxwood (below) grow densely enough to provide shelter from persistent wind or predatory wing,

                                 

Berries and seedheads provide wildbirds with a much needed source of nutrition in winter.

By leaving last years growth intact, some plants, like this grass,  create a layer of protection for the new shoots waiting patiently for spring to return, while at the same time giving some visual winter interest.

 

 Occasionally a snowy display of florescences result unexpectedly, as seen on these Hydrangeas.

 Ligularia

Monarda

Inspiration 1.

When asked what inspires me when designing and installing gardens, or designing and building stonework, my answer is invariably along the lines of, “…my surroundings and life experiences”. I have never really considered how unhelpful my stock answer might seem. It occurs to me that, without further explanation, my response must seem  glib and superficial.  To try and rectify that, I’ve put together a couple of posts focusing on my own particular creative process when creating gardens and stonework.  The following is an example from a recent project here in Connecticut.

The project involved the complete redesign of an Essex property which included several different garden areas. As always, we had taken an inventory of the existing plants throughout the garden areas that we were to redesign and recorded a quantity of Lysimachia clethroides (Gooseneck Loosestrife). This is a handsome plant with a vigorously colonizing habit, and though it didn’t fit into the perennial gardens schemes we were designing, I didn’t reject it completely.

                                                                                      
One component of the project was to create a pedestrian access leading from a large lawn area down a steep, lightly wooded bank to a river.  To create safe access to the water I built a series of stone steps, bridged by curved and switchbacked, mulched paths and ending with stone steps at the river’s edge. Fifty feet downstream from where the steps meet the river is a dam of some six feet in height.  The moving current  and the rushing sound of falling water attest to the existance of a waterfall, and though the fall cannot be seen, its presence is such an audible feature of the place that I wanted to find a subtle way to reference this in the dry landscape.

In the transitional woodland area, I planted hydrangeas and rhododendrons, limiting the color to a predominantly blue and white scheme. Vinca and pachysandra, salvaged from other garden areas, provided ground cover and erosion control, and, along the edges of the paths I decided to create a series of “ waterfalls” by planting the Lysimachia on the inside curve of each series of steps. The nodding, bending spires of white flowerheads, when seen in colonies, evoke whitecaps or, waterfalls and anyone familiar with this plant knows that  it won’t be long before drifts of blossoms cascade down the bank towards the rushing current.