Does Your Garden Style have a Name?

13 years ago

As I walk around the garden I often seem to engage in somewhat useless musings, and this morning I decided it was imperative that I put a name to the kind of garden I've created (or rather am attempting to create). Others compose poetry or try to balance the national budget, but obviously my horizons are somewhat limited. At any rate my first thought was "Mediterranean Cottage Garden" since my plantings are rather informal, but I found too many limitations that didn't quite fit my situation. I finally came up with the brilliant "Mediterranean Country Garden" which seemed to fit my situation perfectly other than the fact that I don't garden in the Mediterranean. I do however live in a Mediterranean climate zone and grow or can grow a large number of plants from that area of the world. At any rate, and don't laugh at this, I felt really happy to have put a label on my creation.

Is there anyone else who has given some thought to this weighty subject? I'm going to be very embarrassed if no one responds so please humor me. I have found that defining something tends to give a sense of direction, and imposes a certain order and coherence to the general scheme. Does this resonate with anyone else?

Ingrid (who at the moment has too much time on her hands since she cannot garden for two weeks for medical reasons).

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Comments (51)

teeandcee
13 years ago
I'd say my garden is...or going to be....Midwest. I moved here from Florida and am delightedly embracing the Midwestern planting style with evergreens and lots of bright perennials.

Ingrid, I hope you can get back to gardening soon. Bad time of the year to be temporarily disabled. :(

Lavender Lass, I LOVE your blue/white garden!
roseseek
13 years ago
I guess you'd have to call it, "Urban, wilderness pot ghetto". Kim
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random_harvest
13 years ago
Darwinian.
rideauroselad OkanaganBC6a
13 years ago
Interesting post Ingrid. We are having a very late cold spring here on the North side of Lake Ontario. Its a bit brisk to wander in the garden yet, but I do have the mulch off and beds rakes. My poor roses are mere sticks, some almost to the ground.

So what to call my garden style. My garden is very much one built based on its situation and limitations. Climate limitations, small town lot, old victorian brick house, etc. After some deliberation, I have decided that it is a semi formal style that is patterned loosely on an English garden motif.

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I have decided that the best description I can think of is "Upper Canada Semi-formal".

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Looking out my window now, it is very hard to believe that it will look like this in June.

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Cheers,

Rideau Rose Lad, aka Rick
jerome
13 years ago
Mediterranean Eclectic? Seriously, for me, I'd have to be at this business for about 15 more years before I felt I'd done it enough to see a pattern in what is going on. I try to choose plants (except for the roses) that are tough and drought tolerant. I also try to choose a lot of edible herbs that can be used in our kitchen. With all the critters around here, that means mostly the pungent herbs that rabbits don't like to eat.
armyyife
13 years ago
Country Cottage- Combining my love for cottage gardens with a little rusticness (ok I don't know if that is a word but it works for me!). ~Meghan
harmonyp
13 years ago
Random Harvest - Darwinian - I LOVE it! I think I'd call mine "Beauties and the Beasts". A combination of beautiful roses and companion plants, mixed together with onions and other practical herbs and veggies (broccoli is NOT attractive), along with some eclectic flowering weeds I've found here and there that really needed a place in someone's garden. And LOTS of paw prints. Beauty does lie in the eye of the beholder, doesn't it?
imagardener2
13 years ago
I went looking in the library and Amazon for what I thought I am attempting and it's not been written yet. "Tropical Cottage Garden". Of course I'm not quite "tropical" only sub-tropical but that is a less interesting title.

Florida is so big with so many zones and micro-zones that "Southern Gardening" cannot cover everyone here. I am in a desert area and just 30 minutes away they have lots of rain due to the river drawing it there.

Most Floridians don't immediately think of roses for their garden because there are so many other vividly colored and exotic plants to choose from.
And when they do add the typical hybrid rose it dies in a year or two due to unsuitable rootstock.

Most of my neighbors can be described as "Tropical". I think my roses, other flowers and edibles makes mine "Tropical Cottage".
sayhellonow
13 years ago
LIke some others, I'd describe my style - loosely - as a cottage gardening.
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
Original Author
13 years ago
lavenderlass, I have three fairly recent postings on the gallery side that have some garden photos. I recognized your garden immediately and really love it, but naming it might be a bit of a challenge. The closest I can get to is "Northern European Expanded Cottage Garden", if that makes any sense.

All your contributions have been fascinating. I love the imaginative names. Now mine seems pedestrian and I may have to rethink. Your pictures have really added a lot. Would love to see more.

Ingrid
carol6ma_7ari
13 years ago
Yes: "Shabby". :(
the_bustopher z6 MO
13 years ago
I think that "sardine can" sums it up rather succinctly.
rosefolly
13 years ago
I think I'd just call mine Confused Californian.

Rick, I admire your house with all its brick and natural stone.

Rosefolly
jerijen
13 years ago
I like Kim's Urban Pot Ghetto Style, and I'm taken with "Darwinian," but my husband named ours:
"California Heritage HodgePodge."

I might add -- with a strong Darwinian element.

Jeri
Embothrium
13 years ago
For some years now I've been demonstrating examples of the Awtu Hellwithit School.
sherryocala
13 years ago
Bustopher, how cute. We have the same style. My particular variation is "sardines in the round".

"Florida is so big with so many zones and micro-zones"

Denise, how true. If I tried Tropical Cottage Gardening, it would be called "Frozen to the Ground Tropical Cottage Garden". No, that's probably wrong. "Killed to the Root Tropical Cottage Garden".

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...
nanadollZ7 SWIdaho
13 years ago
Lavender Lass--I think you have a lovely mountain cottage garden. As your neighbor in dry Idaho, I think I have a high desert cottage garden out in the foothills. Diane
meredith_e Z7b, Piedmont of NC, 1000' elevation
13 years ago
Oh, this is a fun topic! I have themes for my garden areas, but that's as close as it gets. The house was your basic Southern brick cottage with some elements similar to non-Mediterranean Country French (more northern), so I added a few more to play that up.

The gardens I like are often so formal. And I love Charleston and Savannah... and cottage gardens, too! So the house ends up being a quaint (French-ish) cottage pretending to be a Normandy mansion, and the garden is a quaint cottage garden with formal touches inspired by castles.

Truly 'Shabby Chic,' I think :) Or a split personality, if you are less kind ;)

If the French hadn't inspired so much in the South, I'd really be reaching, so I'll just say 'Merci!' :D
mendocino_rose
13 years ago
Gosh, I could make a lot of jokes about my garden style but I know that isn't what you are asking for. I used to call it California Cottage but it's more dramatic and wild. Maybe some of my friends that know this place could help lable it.
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harmonyp
13 years ago
mendocino_rose - I think I'd classify the style represented in your photos, as Heaven.
lavender_lass
13 years ago
Ingrid- Your gardens are beautiful!

Rick- I think your garden is wonderful and very much like an english garden :)

Medicino rose- Lovely garden and the backdrop is stunning, too!

Diane- I like that...mountain cottage garden. Do you have any pictures of your high desert cottage garden?
hoovb zone 9 sunset 23
13 years ago
Uhh..."rose garden"?
User
13 years ago
my garden style - delusional, bipolar, period grandeur(1970's ghettoe squat), patio povera. attention deficit disorder. In truth, I have no style - just a home garden and an away garden, subject to change at a moments whim. Beds appear almost overnight, obsessive sprees break out (the xeriscaping, fruit gardens, cutting gardens, alpines, then species tulips, fritillaries (long gone) conifer revival (wavering) Californian meadow,(ahem) English woodland (as if) and roses, of course - roses plonked here and there, sometimes as a tiny vignette (R.primula, surrounded with T.clusiana and T.'Ballerina', mounds of pale yellow erodium.....often surrounded by weedy haunts of goosegrass and sneaky fat hen. There is no hard landscaping as such and the 'paths' are just woodchip with timber edging...or weedy balding grass. If I didn't have a big greenhouse, I would probably have more vegetables - the entire plot was used just for growing vegetables before I took it over. For certain, the greenhouse moved my gardening 'styles' up several notches because it is so much easier to grow seedlings(in multiples!). It has been easy to indulge in numerous phases and fads, including anything laughably called 'design'.
My home garden does have some semblence of style - just can't think what to call it yet as it is such a baby (only 6 weeks old!)
meredith_e Z7b, Piedmont of NC, 1000' elevation
13 years ago
mendocino_rose, where do you get your ideas? Your garden is very inspirational!

I love the statues. I splurge on elements like that (small ones, lol), but mine's a real cottage, so it may look a bit silly to some, but I like it a lot :)
rosefolly
13 years ago
Mendocino Rose lives in an Enchanted Garden.
ronda_in_carolina
13 years ago
Mine is a Hillside Rose Garden
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harryshoe zone6 eastern Pennsylvania
13 years ago
I describe it as an "informal Bohemian cottage garden" on my GW page. That name popped into my head simply because its little more than a collection of whims. The motivating factor is the discovery of plants which look good throughout the entire season with little maintenance.

I don't give a lot of thought to arrangement or color combinations beyond "short in front, tall in back".

It looks OK, but not great. I am constantly moving things, trying to find the right look. Its still early spring, cold and rainy. Yet, I've already transplanted over 30 shrubs, bushes or vines.

I guess if I had a real style, I'd have a plan. Then things would have a place to stay.
aimeekitty
13 years ago
when I was first deciding how to do my garden, I read a bunch of books and basically wanted a cottage garden with lots of roses and mounds of flowers all mixed in with each other. I suppose I don't really care what it's called... but I do go back and look at my favorite inspiration photos of other gardens periodically to reevaluate the direction I'm going.

What I really DIDN'T want was what is typically shown as the California or Southwestern Garden ( a lot of bare ground and succulents )... what I wanted was a bunch of romantic froufrou flowers. So I tried to find ones that would do well in this climate, lots more than I originally thought, actually!
And of course there is the element of going with "what lives".

My garden isn't really mature yet, so I don't know if it's there (there being roughly a cottage garden), but I'm enjoying it.
mendocino_rose
13 years ago
I love everyone's comments and especially photos. There are some wonderful gardeners on this forum. Meredith was wondering where I get my ideas. I do a serious amount of garden day dreaming. Usually I'll see an area as a tableau and work to create that picture. I also feel that a garden should reflect it's setting. I've soaked myself with gardening books over the years and have visited some fine gardens that have inspired me.
landperson
13 years ago
My 1/2 acre is called "maybe someday this will look like something but for now it is just a potentially gorgeous mess...."
My garden and my life are both chaotic and unplanned and just fine except not orderly or mannerly.
I try but it's just not in my nature

There are at least 10 roses in this frame but only one of them (Apricot Nectar) has actually started to bloom.
In the left front corner are Smokey and Anna Ford. To the left of Apricot Nectar is High Noon and down low between them is Louis XIV. Just behind are Colette Clement and Vol de Nuit and Peace. And just outside the fence to the right are Werner von Blon, Smarty and Asta von Parpart

Here is a link that might be useful: chaos beginning to bloom
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
Original Author
13 years ago
Ronda, is that you in the photo? You're as beautiful as your roses. Am I wrong in thinking that you did quite a bit of the stonework yourself?

Landperson, I don't see so much chaos as abundance. In a few weeks it will be very pretty.

Pam, I've seen other photos of your garden but these are some of my favorites. The words sprang into my mind "Garden of Eden".

hoovb, anyone who has seen pictures of your garden would call you far too modest. I think you're going to have to give this some more thought.

This has turned into a wonderful thread.

Ingrid
meredith_e Z7b, Piedmont of NC, 1000' elevation
13 years ago
"I love everyone's comments and especially photos. There are some wonderful gardeners on this forum. Meredith was wondering where I get my ideas. I do a serious amount of garden day dreaming. Usually I'll see an area as a tableau and work to create that picture. I also feel that a garden should reflect it's setting. I've soaked myself with gardening books over the years and have visited some fine gardens that have inspired me."

I have trunks and trunks of garden books with such lovely pictures :) I usually get all of my color ideas straight from something I've seen.

My garden is in the middle of old tobacco fields and dense woods, as far as setting goes, lol. I am very pleased at having a small little cottage house and being a 'country' girl with a cottage garden. My theme-ier ones are tucked in secret places ;) Yes, I put a bit of Charleston in my pocket and carried it home with me; I can't resist.

Such beautiful gardens pictured, y'all! I do love seeing what everyone does!
zeffyrose
13 years ago
Ingid --this is a wonderful thread--so many wonderful gardeners on this foeum-----My yard is a mish-mash---I call it "survival of the fittest"---can't dig anymore so I'm enjoying the roses that are surviving---
Hope you are OK soon-----
Nice to see so many beautiful gardens--
A couple of corners of my yard---
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Florence
hosenemesis
13 years ago
Florence, can you please tell me the name of the white rose in the last photo?

Wonderful gardens.
Renee
mendocino_rose
13 years ago
I'm wondering why everyone is so critical of themselves. All I see is beauty here. Ingrid is right about seeing abundance and not chaos. Gardens are meant to be this way.
harmonyp
13 years ago
Here I'm feeling all proud of my little HTs, and see in these photos roses that are beyond breathtaking, and so unbelievable big. This is actually a serious question - how on earth do you keep something that big deadheaded and pruned?

... Humbled and in awe...
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
Original Author
13 years ago
harmonyp, some of these roses, if they're given enough room, don't really need to be pruned that often. For varities such as many teas and chinas, if you don't deadhead they'll still keep on blooming. For the more punctilious, every few years you grit your teeth, put on your gauntlet gloves, and saw down some of the oldest canes. (Helps if you're married and have a willing husband who's not a bleeder.) Seriously, a lot of them do perfectly well with watering, alfalfa fertilizer once or twice a year and otherwise benign neglect.

Ingrid
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
Original Author
13 years ago
Renee, in answer to your question I believe it may be Paul's Himalayan Musk, which is actually a light lilac pink once blooming rambler. (Just in case Florence doesn't see your question; hope I don't turn out to be terribly wrong).

Ingrid
ronda_in_carolina
13 years ago
Ingrid,

I did do all the stone work myself including the waterfall and pond.

Here is the BEFORE after horrible weedy vines were pulled:
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And the AFTER:
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Always a work in progress.

Florence, I have never seen those images of your garden--SPECTACULAR!!!!!
diane_nj 6b/7a
13 years ago
Camp Chaos.

Thanks for the photos everyone. Flo, those plants are BEAUTIFUL!!!
zeffyrose
13 years ago
Rhonda---what an amazing job you did----You are a strong lady and your garden is beautiful.
Renee---sorry I didn't get back to you sooner (lots of cooking for Easter--LOL)---Ingrid is correct---it is Paul's Himalayan Musk-----and it is a true survivor---
Mendocino Rose also has some great pictures of her PHM___
Florence
daisyincrete Z10? 905feet/275 metres
13 years ago
I think my garden style could be called, Greedy Guts, or, Quart into a Pint Pot style.
I have been used to a much bigger garden than this one, and have yet to learn that there simply is not going to be room for everything I want to grow.
I keep trying to squeeze more and more in. The poor roses and other plants have to take big breaths in to accommodate their neighbours.
I still haven't laid the paths or steps.
At this rate, the paths are getting narrower and narrower, but there will be plenty of flowers!
Daisy

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ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
Original Author
13 years ago
Daisy, it's beautiful! I remember pictures of your incredible garden in England (Cornwall?) so I'm not surprised. I rather like the dirt garden paths in your rustic setting, just in case you need encouragement to put that off for a little longer.

Ingrid
Krista_5NY
13 years ago
I think of my garden as a Rose Garden with accompanying plants to give somewhat of a Cottage Garden look. My garden is rather a monoculture, so the companion plants for the roses don't seem to be in abundance...

These pics are from a number of years ago...

Bourbon Rose Mme Pierre Oger with pansies.

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Another view of the front rose bed.

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stealthq
13 years ago
I so wish I could see everyone's garden pictures while at work. I'm sure they're beautiful.

I've not been able to come up with a name for my style, yet. I'm a very beginner gardener - maybe that's why. I'm going for the abundance and casualness of cottage gardens and the naturalness of woodland gardens with just a touch of orderliness. I don't want it to look 'tended', but I do want it to look self-contained.
bouquet
12 years ago
I saw this somewhere...and I'm stealing it for my style: "Trowel and Error"
iowa_jade
12 years ago
"The Wabbit WoWinn."

Creeping Charlie Friendship Fields.

Ploppers Potluck!

Late Frost Lick.

SHOCK & AWE if we survive the above.

Kinda.
poodlepup
12 years ago
My garden style is the same style as my house--"Little old lady" style
seil zone 6b MI
12 years ago
Suburban Perpetual Evolution: city lot, never the same two years in a row.
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
Original Author
12 years ago
I love your responses and so many of them are sooo funny and clever. They tell quite a bit about you and your garden!

Ingrid

Does Your Garden Style have a Name?

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