That is what I call the Front Parlour Garden. People who expect a garden to be like the old fashioned front palour, that had the "good" furniture and knick-knacks and was dusted and swept once a week and nobody ever used it unless upscale (non family) company came.

I love aspic, yum-yum!

The helpmeet works for a garden center and is continually amazed and dismayed at the detachment from the natural world displayed by customers. Many are amazed to learn that peonies bloom once a year, that ants are part of the whole peony "experience". And just because they show up on the peonies doesn't mean they're plotting an invasion of the home!

Nor do they want to hear that annuals require weekly fussing (at least!) to provide the seemingly endless bloom their nursery tags "promise". "Set in and forget it" is restricted to rotisseries advertised on TV.

It's frustrating to deal with that sort of mindset, I'm sure. Personally, I am alternately delighted by my "insight" and appalled by my oversights every single year. I think gardening and design require a very good sense of humor and the candor to accept that sometimes you really, "blow it". ;)

Chelone, you've sure hit the nail on your head when you say, "Personally, I am alternately delighted by my 'insight' and appalled by my oversights every single year. I think gardening and design require a very good sense of humor and the candor to accept that sometimes you really, 'blow it'."

Personally, I am alternately delighted by my "insight" and appalled by my oversights every single year.

Does it encourage anyone else to try LOTS of new things every year - since a person only gets a single yearly shot at trying combinations? (up here on the southern tundra at least)

Or leave you with the sense that you could never live long enough to learn all it takes to be an outstanding gardener?

-VW

(No aspic for me. Chicken Jello, yuck.)

"Chicken Jell-O"? my sympathies if that's your assessment of aspic, VW! Clearly, you've never tasted the real "McCoy" in its glory. Maybe it's regional thing. But it's delicious! and it damn sure ain't Jell-O!

What difference does it make if you "get it right" or screw it up royally? I've been at it for nearly 17 yrs., now. I'm frighteningly "amateur" to many of the regulars on this forum. I'm OK with that! I'm not discouraged in the least by last year's failures, most of them are in the perennial borders and are easily corrected with some digging.

I've taken my best shot. I've paid attention to available sunlight, soil conditions, and I've f--ked it up more than a few times. That's how we learn; if I had a dime for every seam I've ripped out over the years I wouldn't be showing up for work every day, my friends! ;)

You have to have a good sense of humor!

There are two things that a newbie should recognize when looking at garden pictures photographed by a pro.

1. The garden photographed is probably mature and has been edited by the owner numerous times to achieve the desired 'look'. Or, the garden has been designed by a skilled hand that knows how to combine hardscape, texture and color.

2. When viewing a garden (or interior design) picture you will note that the photographer has moved some element (statue, flower pot, bench) into the foreground of the picture which stops the eye for a moment before seeing the entire picture. Go though a garden magazine looking for this feature and you will note that those photographs where this has been done appeal most. It is also an important landscape 'trick'.

I'm reminded of when a neighbor had her pool entered in a contest by the company that built it. To make the picture look better they brought in all sorts of plants to place temporarily in and around her pool landscaping (which looked pretty nice to me as it was). Boy, it sure looked great in the photo though. The pool company won their award. But they took the plants with them when they were finished with the shot.

Patty

The same culture that results in all those out-of-touch-with-Nature garden center shoppers is the same one that give them the money to shop at garden centers. All you can do is help them select your products and try to assure that they get pleasing results, so they come back for more next year.

To illustrate my point here is a picture of one area of my garden taken today, I should have taken one yesterday when I first had the idea. Here you can see tulips just past their best and the apple blossom being blown from the tree, in the next day or two that beautiful red will be gone and the white of the tree will be green. A week from now the hosta will be more evident and in a month or so the arch will be covered and the ornamental grass swaying. I have talked about the 'walk about' before and this is what I mean, each day is different and walking out to see what has appeared (or disappeared) is my pleasure. {{gwi:32245}}

in the next day or two that beautiful red will be gone and the white of the tree will be green...

The transient nature of gardening is a huge part of the appeal for me. Crabapple bloom is so short, yet the sheer exuberance of its peak can be overwhelming.
To quote Edna St Vincent Millay:

"My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light."

Chelone, on your advice: "But it's delicious! and it damn sure ain't Jell-O!" I promise to give aspic another chance.

-VW

As I live and breathe, that's a photo I never expected to see. Tulips and a rustic pergola, who'd have thought? Lovely.

I think that photo neds its own thread. Is this Ink's first photo of his own garden?

As amazed as Kim and Tibs to see this photo! More please, Tony!

I will take a contrarian view as to seasonality of gardens. My own approach tends to emphasize plants and settings that do look very similar year round. I tend to use plants with distinctive form and habit that don't require pruning, and so resist a maintenance gardener's tendency to prune into meat balls. Succulents, bromeliads, Agaves and Aloes lead the way, as do the various palms. I prefer my winter garden to look like summer, and my summer garden as well. Spring abundance of flowers I prefer to occur in late fall into winter when I most feel the need not to let go of the warmth and abundance. I have never understood the preference for mostly deciduous trees and winter dormant herbaceous perennials in a climate such as ours that naturally has the best growth of natives in late fall into late spring. Maybe I just have a hard time with seeing bare earth in the garden, unless it is hardscape...

I don't think ink is the only one that should show pics of his garden and/or work...there is a few other people here that have given great direction that i would love to see their work. Any takers?

ink that is georgous, can we have more? although if seeing more involves having to try aspic i may have to pass =P, a bit funky about textures of foods lol. To be perfectly honest chelone the thought of meat in a gelatin substance makes me want to heave :), sorry. Don't do it viewwest, don't do it!

sorry i got a bit off topic, my mind just went there ;)!

I want to move the tulips over so they are out in the sun, right in front of the yellow shrubs.

Thanks, Ink. Few people offer a verbal sketch with their photos. I'm trying to imagine the arch, in particular, and I'm wondering how your picture fits with Nandina's comments aboveÂ

"1. The garden photographed is probably mature and has been edited by the owner numerous times to achieve the desired 'look'. Or, the garden has been designed by a skilled hand that knows how to combine hardscape, texture and color."

True on all counts, I'm guessing? Well-editted, maturity, intentional design.

"2. When viewing a garden (or interior design) picture you will note that the photographer has moved some element (statue, flower pot, bench) into the foreground of the picture which stops the eye for a moment before seeing the entire picture. Go though a garden magazine looking for this feature and you will note that those photographs where this has been done appeal most. It is also an important landscape 'trick'."

Curious? What's in your foreground? I'm picturing you putting that apple tree in for the photo, or the arch? I'm being silly, of course, but I think Nandina will forgive me. I know she's right about the staging of photos for the garden magazines.

What I'm really marveling about, you sly creature, is the use of a photo, a static form, to express the transient and ephemeral, while at the same time making your debut with a forum pic.

Kudos!

Wellspring

Chelone--I know you are "Up Nawth"--bt I think I have the same customers that your helpmeet gets. Or worse...the folks that want continual bloom, all summer, on a perennial.
yeah right. Maybe in in zone 10...but even there, plants go through a resting cycle.

It gets even better when they want said plant for FULL SHADE. (Oh, and it needs to be "deer proof.")

Tony--don't you find that your vignette's transitory nature makes it all the more pleasurable for you? That's certainly part of the joy for ME. I envy you your tulips! Down here we have to think of them as an annual...and I'm not willing to make that investment in either time OR money. Not to mention the whole DEER thing.

melanie/proud mother of a college graduate (BS in physics!)

This thread has helped me answer a question I've long had:
Why do my neighbors work so hard to have such boring yards?

Typically: Green lawn, Green foundation shrubs, an 'island' with a clump of three birches, two junipers and one mugo pine, set into white landscape rocks. Maybe, the wild and crazy ones go all out with a half dozen red tulips next to the house. So I guess they just want it to stay the same all the time?

I was amazed that iris could bloom every month of the year in the SF Bay area. But, I felt much more at ease moving back where we have a glorious, wonderful week or two or iris bloom (this week! now now now! *smile*). After months of miserable slush alternating with bitter cold, the spring flowers don't just bloom -- they hit you over the head, drag you around the yard and leave you gasping for air!

-VW

My Aspic maladventure happened in Austria - lovely people who are much too enamored of organ meats.

I love kidney, "sweetbreads", but have thusfar missed out on tripe and heart (and Rocky Mt. oysters). Really good pates (my favorite delivery system for liver) are often encased in aspic; think of it as bouillon in a "solid" and it's easier to try. I love "mincemeat", too... but the best ones are those with venison in them and they're not sicky-sweet; they're savory. Maybe it's a New England thing... noHtheHn New England. ;)

I always admire tulips but am too cheap (NE, again?) to buy bulbs that peter out over time and are candy to deer (never tried the species sort that set off the rage, though). But your's look might appealing... (they'll grow in full shade, right?).

Nah.

So, Ink...what follows the tulips? Do you treat them as annuals? I don't see something like peonies in the beds which will grow to mask dying tulip foliage. Is this your playground to try different annual arrangements each year concentrating on the new introductions which may prove landscape useful in the future?

Before I die, I'd like to once more eat real mincemeat in a flaky pie crust made with real lard. I'd like to have one more bed of knock your socks off tulips.

I agree with the original premise of this thread, that too much is expected by the inexperienced homeowner in an ever changing landscape. I'm hacking back nicotiana by the armful so black eyed Susans and yellow lilies can take the stage while periwinkles dance on their little toes practicing for July.

Nell