Here is a work in progress.

1st Photo is from late 2008..I chopped all this nasty brush out (got insane poisy ivy), put some mulch down and pruned the trees.

2nd Photo is from spring 2010...still a work in progress (looks different than pictured now). I promoise to share in spring 2011 as I have and will have added many perrenials.

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From left to right.
Summer Wine Ninebark
Tor Spriea
Rose Glow Barberry
Crusader Hawthorn
Dappled Willow
Katsura
Native Hawthorn
Dwarf Arctic Blue Willow

I love pictures! I try to post them if I have any that are relevant to the thread. I always enjoy looking at them.

I also love those stone steps posted above, they are gorgeous and the flagstone patio is too. Beautiful hardscape. I didn't even look at the flowers I was so excited by the hardscape.

I do like the wide garden photos where you get some context. The perennials forum seems to be ideal for that - you've got your dedicated forums for the close-up flower faces that look pretty much like what you see in the catalogs. I'm not a collector or a one type plant fancier - I can't tell you the names of any of your expensive hostas or daylilies. But I can admire the lay out and execution of your garden beds, the hardscape... if only I could see it beyond the blur behind the giant flower face!

Here are some long views from my efforts. I garden in small plots from a scooter. Keeping each bed small allows me to do most of the care involving the sweetie as little as possible. There are 10 beds plus the foundation plantings. This year due to much rain and extreme heat, much of it has gotten ahead of me. Most of these pics were taken last year. Gives some views from different seasons

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Probably flickr and others have a desktop app too, but I like to use Picasa because the desktop app is integrated with the web gallery. The desktop app manipulates (organize, crop, edit, etc) everything on my computer and then a simple UPLOAD button to get it to my picasa web gallery.

I find my whole area shots generally look better in person than in photos. Here's one that made the cut:

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Lol, thanks diggerdee for the info! Yes, the garden pics on here are all so beautiful, but don't be surprised that yours is one of them!

I was thinking about this and remembered that my phone can send videos to youtube. I'm sure there are phones and apps that can send pics to web photo hosting sites too. Something to look into perhaps? (downside could be that you would need to sync with your computer to get them there too.)

gazania--you have an amazing eye for superb texture/size/color contrasts. Just lovely!

Kate

I'll echo that - beautiful spaces, gazania.

Thanks shropshire lad - you are too kind! :)

Wendy, I agree wholehearedly - my gardens, in the long or wide view, seem to look better in person than in photos. Sometimes I take a photo of a bed or border when I think it looks good, and the photo is disappointing for some reason. That's why I stick to close-ups - that, and you can't see the surrounding mess, lol

You all have such wonderful photos and such beautiful gardens! I really do think we should have a photo thread on a regular basis, just to keep these gardens front and center before our eyes. It is not only so helpful from a design standpoint (says the woman who can't design) but it's also just so much fun to see these lovely gardens.

Thank you all for sharing!
:)
Dee

Thank you for your kind words Kate and duluth. I do like a lot of texture and color in my beds, but it got there, not by 'design', but by planting what ever cought my eye at the local garden centers. As I said, the beds are small, so a little goes a long way. I am sure my 3/4 acre looks a bit garish to some that 'garden by the books', but I like it and that is all that really counts.

To all who posted photos...you made my day!

Half or more of what I see would be decimated by deer and groundhogs around here but I LOVE to see all these pics.

Thanks for taking the time to share.

I love this thread! Everyone's pictures are gorgeous. I love the Japanese Maple area - omigosh!! I want that!! Dee, I just bought some Orania lilies! I love the color - I'm so glad you posted yours!

The best I can do is a gallery. If you click on slideshow, the pictures will be full screen size. Have been trying all evening to download a few more current ones, but for some reason, my computer insists on putting them on another photo site! I really hate being so incompetent!

And by the way, diggerdee, your gardens are beautiful! As are all these others.

Here is a link that might be useful: My garden, Feb to June 1, 2010

Wow, the pctures posted are amazing and so inspirational!

Here are some of mine from June 30:

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Dahlia (probaly Karma Fiesta) and Campanula Kent Belle

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Acillea 'Coronation Gold' and Rocket Snapdragon

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All of my late june pics are here

Great photos folks!

gazania, your combo of catmint, geranium and weigela is an awesome spring look!

Is that a Paperback Maple in one of the photos?

whaas, sharp eye! You recognized everything perfectly even though my pictures aren't the sharpest. That paper bark is my 'dream' tree! Now, I will give you a gold star if you can name the bright yellow/green plant in the first picture. It is a favorite of mine. I don't understand why more people don't plant it.

I couldn't enlarge it so I'm really guessing here: it might be euphorbia polychroma. However, I feel like the green ought to be darker. No, on second thought that plant is really chartreuse. Is it any euphorbia?
Marie

I threw a few of the garden pics into a slideshow you can watch if you wish, just to give an idea of the flavour of the gardens. We live in an 1820s farmhouse and our style is old-fashioned and blowsy, I guess

Here is a link that might be useful: slideshow

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Here is a link that might be useful: My Blog

I wished I wasn't so computer challenged. I want to learn to take them from my digital camera and post here or be able to share with my friends but I need somebody to sit here beside me and teach me. I don't comprehend understanding technical instructions. It's like a brick wall goes up when I have to read directions or instructions for anything. Something that was never picked up when I went to school. They didn't know what ADD or ADHD was back then. I'm pushing 68, no need to be tested for it now and what could they do..at my age? Just something I live with.

a2z, are the pinkspires, fr.R , some kind of salvia? and which is your actually-in-real-life-BLACK sedum?!!
so fun to see.

dee, those oralias are just sooo sensual!!

thyme, love the massing and colors of the shrubs with intermingling of perennials on that front slope. Are tall ornamental grasses in that bed too or do you not like them?

wendy b, really like your groupings of forms and textures, highlighted w/ flowers. what are those gorgeous salmon and bi-color salmon daylilies? that's also a perfect placement of the polygonum polymorpha. are you loving it?

now gazania, my goodness. i love to see your talent with massing shapes, textures, colors of shrubs, trees,
conifers, perennials, bulbs into flowing beds that lead you in and around.

and i just love seeing the same location shot in 3 different seasons. SO instructive and impressive. The way you have laid out the key woodies and placed them to draw you into the back garden is also most appealing. The edging of the beds is my fav look for island bed edging.

i think one thing that really makes me think about my own design failures- is that your plant choices and placement result in neat mounds of shoulder-to-shoulder near-edge foreground plantings that look serene and well kempt while being vibrant and intriguing.my edges are just not there and seeing yours- inspires me.

your plant material looks very very healthy and well cared for.( If that yell. and gn. plant IS euph. polychroma, as I would guess as well, i can assure you that mine have never looked THAT good.those 'blooms' look VERY large!And what is the large swath of tall blue verticals?

So great to see all the GW skills abounding here! I don't have many overall design shots on our fairly new ongoing/ongrowing website but there's alot of plant material photos(plant i.d./captions to be added later).
best,
mindy
www.cottonarboretum.com/

A lot of beautiful gardening going on here!

Mindy, coming from you, those compliments are hugely flattering! It is indeed Euphorbia Polychroma. Below are 3 pics taken at different times. Soon after the second pic, I cut it back by about half. It soon recovers to a very nice soft 'shrub' that blends so well with the Frosty Morn sedum in pic 3.

The tall blue you asked about is Nepeta Walkers Low.

May 9
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May 29
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Great pics, everyone!

I do occasionally post photos but often don't because I tend to feel the photos are inadequate - either because I don't feel the subject of the photo is up to par or the photo itself doesn't come out quite right. Or I'm too busy or forget to snap a photo of something during bloom time.

Lots of nice pics here. I also like seeing photos of the entire garden design. Sometimes I find interest in new plants, but have a difficult time finding photos in a garden setting - most nurseries show the up close shots.

Anyway, WendyB - what Hosta and Heucherella is that? I like your color combos, nice.

hey gazania, NOW you're showing off!! that perfect clump of var. sedum- no fair!!
that's walkers low behind the geraniums?? how high ARE those beds mounded?
what a nice job you have done there. My Love and I are now gonna get SERIOUS about our edges.

are you near Chanticleer(genuflect, genuflect)? have you been to england and beth chatto's?

best,
mindy

Mindy, those beds are mounded maybe about 8 inches above grade. The bloom height of the Nepeta as it sprawls is probably 12 to 16 inches.

I have to give my sweetie credit for the edging. He goes around all 18 beds (that includes the 8 stand alone trees) with an edger 3 or 4 times in the growing season. He just finished the 2nd round for this year last week. Due to the excess rain, heat and humidity he is behind this year. Normallly round 2 would have been done by the second week of July.

LOL, no I have never done the England scene.

gaz, the cutting/edging is certainly excellent but i was mostly addressing your choice of edging plants and your positioning vand upkeep of them such that they make a good edge and don't go all sprawly as mine do.
best, mindy

Dear a2zmom

On the fifth picture of the group that you posted, what are the fuzzy looking light-blue (?) flowers that are directly underneath the yarrow, coronation gold?

I am really enjoying this thread with all the pictures. Here are some pictures from a couple of my flower bed. Thanks for looking.

Jodi

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June 2010

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July 2010

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August 2010

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Small Hosta bed

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Grass/Shrub garden

Here's my work in progress. Year 3 of my sunny butterfly garden, taken at the end of july.

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The Plant Geek
www.confessionsofaplantgeek.blogspot.com

I have one simple suggestion to make to all you talented gardeners generous enough to take photos and post them:
Take a tip from professional garden photographers: Try to photograph your gardens when the sun is not on them! The sun makes for glare, and bleaches out the colors, while shade and cloudy days enable the colors to look saturated and to stand out against a restful background where all the nuances of the plants- can be appreciated.(similar concept to how you squint and reach for your sunglasses to cut the glare on bright sunny days.)

take a look at wendy b's shot and some of gazania's first group of photos- to see what i mean.

best,
mindy
www.cottonarboretum.com/

calliope,
i just went through your slideshow which i changed to be hand controlled so i could better study the shots. man, that is aLOT of happy plant material there.and it's great to see all the many different garden areas, different heights, etc. Are you in PA? what a spring paradise! i love it that you have stream waterfalls; did you make them or have them made?
and maybe lastly, is that an aeschulus parv. briotta just before the strwberry dessert? how beautiful. ours have been having a dreadful time w/ winter moth the last few yrs.so the leaves look horrible.It's inspiring to see such a healthy specimen.

best,
mindy

Love all the garden photos (thanks for sharing, everyone) but have to agree uploading them and posting them in GW is a pain. I finally decided to just get the whole message down in MS Word and then paste it in the message window. It takes time to upload the pictures + half the time the website or my Internet connection goes down right when I click on Submit Message. Very, very frustrating.

I don't do shots of my flowerbeds because they're about 10 years from being photo-worthy. Individual flowers work for me because I enjoy seeing how intricately they're designed and the close-up shots give me that. If the day ever comes when my beds look ANYTHING like the ones on this thread, I'll post photos of them. I'm a "plant-it-wherever-you-can-find-a-bare-spot" gardener and rarely consider anything beyond color. Sometimes not even that! It continues to amaze me that so far I haven't produced any truly disgusting color combinations.

I just love it when gardeners are generous enough to share not only their flowers' pictures, but also their flowers' names. Many thanks!

I found that the worst time to take pics is anytime between 8 and 7pm (roughly). The next best thing is pics when the sun is filerted, not necessarily cloudy per say.

The best time seems to be when the sun is at its lowest angles so early in the morning or early evening...it seems to excentuate the textures and colors by creating subtle highlights, or at least a backdrop to the plants. Of course your limited to having the sun to your back or need to take the pic from a shaded spot.

love this thread.

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Whoops! v1rtu0s1ty, your early pics reminded me I forgot to plant the Castor bean seeds I collected! Any tips on growing these? You could PM me, instead, if you want.

Lovely shots, everyone.

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Here is a link that might be useful: My Garden

buddyrose,
your front walkway is an excellent example of what a difference it makes to 'frame'the beds in that area.Your brick edging just gives a nice finished look to the planting beds.

i'd like to ask about the 'faux shutters' on either side of the door. what are they and was your intent to introduce another color to the facade where there was no space for shutters? i've never seen a treatment like that before and it is so cool.

i am also really intrigued by something in the rear photo. Plse tell us about the structure that seems to be over the garden?and the hanging blinds. more photos of it? this all feels very architect driven;are you an architect? really interesting innovations there!
best,
mindy
www.cottonarboretum.com/

Thank you arbo retum. Those red flowered trees are common aesculus pavia (red buckeye)and were all seed grown (by me), and not the more popular aesculus carnea Briotii. We have springs on the property and decided to turn the old cinder pit from the coal fired furnace into a rockery, and the artesian stock water tank into a spring-fed pond. Having continually running spring water, and having the pond terraced out in the side of a hill, a waterfall seemed like a good idea. We contracted it done. It's a thirty foot fall and no way did either my husband or I want to do the digging. That and the pond are all hand dug.

We are not in Pa., but South-Eastern Ohio.

hmmm. aeschulus pavia is one of my top 3 'shrubs' (we try to keep ours at 10' or so.)On this pg. are photos of our blooms close up and the fruit:
http://www.cottonarboretum.com/plants/shrubs/

how did you grow it from seed plse?(so cool!)

best,
mindy

gazania, simply elegant and stunning!
pat

Really sorry, it's hard to monitor threads especially if we are also posting other questions on different topics. :)

diggerdee,

regarding your question about grass, I just mow them. Sometimes, I accidentally mow the petunias. :D hehehe. I don't have much time to make them beautiful. My eyes tell me that natural is more beautiful than making it so organized and clean. hehehe. That's just me.

linnea56,

About castor beans, I usually plant them around 3rd week of May. I put 3 seeds in one 4 inch diameter hole. I form them in a triangle. Before I sow them, I soak them overnight. I just use regular water and not warm.

The castor beans on my picture doesn't get enough sun that's why it's small. My other castor beans are taller. I also haven't tried putting fertilizer. I'll try next year. Maybe, they'll be taller.

Thanks! ;)

Mindy, A. pavia couldn't be easier to start. They germinate without stratification. As soon as the pod begins to split, remove the buckeye immediately and I use large flats of coarse sand and bury them at least halfway, tuck them out of direct sunlight and keep the sand moist and the rodents away, and they'll start germinating very quickly. When the nut raises up out of the sand by the stem, and start throwing out the cotyledons, I check for roots, and get them potted out almost immediately into media because they have long and rapidly growing tap roots. I winter them over protected from freezing in a cool g'house and keep them in the nursery cans and by the next winter they can winter over fine in an unheated perennial house. When they get about a foot and a half tall, they go into the ground.

I moved and so all my gardens are new. The prevous owners had nothing but grass. Here is a before and after.

Before

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After

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After

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I usually don't post over here, but I wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to post photos of your gardens here. And since I already have photos on Photobucket, I thought I'd share some of the overall garden shots.

I am amazed at the size of many of your gardens. I cannot imagine how much work you must put into them, and I marvel at how well planted these huge areas are.

I also love looking at your beautifully landscaped front yards and pretty houses (I live in the land of the 1970s stucco tract home and bermuda lawn).

Here is my garden at various times of the year.

Path to veggies with Wheeler's Dwarf Pittosporum, Sprenger Asparagus ferns, bower vines, Santa Barbara daisies, echeverrias and wire plant.
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Roses, foxgloves, lamb's ear, columbine, irises, daylilies, paludosum daisies (annual):
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From the other side, Total Recall iris:
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The front of the house in March with white Banks rose in bloom and carex and fescue grasses:

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From the other side, zoysia grass, sword ferns and podocarpus hedge, Walnut tree:
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The pond with flag irises, tropicals and agaves:
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From the other side:
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Bridal Wreath Spirea underplanted with Santa Barbara daisies:
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Climbing Pinkie Rose:

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Brugmansia, gold edged Duranta, Pyracantha, and sad impatiens:
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Sorry if I posted too many photos. I got carried away.
Thanks for looking.
Renee

Renee- Your gardens are beautiful!!!
Thanks for sharing them!

wow renee, those are some very happy plants there. such lushness- looks like england to me!i thought so. cal was too hot for english style gardens,but what do i know? are you in san diego area? i really like, in particular, the framed view type shots.you have an excellent design sense for placing key large bold elements in your vignettes and balancing them well. I think the white walnut tree composition is a killer with all the subtle fascinating green elements of different shapes and textures; very Japanese design-like. Btw, is that moss in the walnut tree and pond photos? it is so intriguing. i've never seen a walnut tree I guess; had no idea they had fantastic white bark like that. grafted, it seems?I also think it's really cool how a photo can often show you a serendipitous design that was unintended (like maybe the opposing curves of the paved edge, the hedge, and the brug.arch?!)

A number of your images would make really good Fine Gardening Photo of the Day shots. Share them; it's fun! i'm even going as far as to suggest which shots you might want to submit. I put them below, and maybe i'm cheeky (but i hope you won't think that)but i cropped a bit to highlight the best features of your already very well composed shots.
Michelle at Taunton press (publishers of Fine Gdng.)rcves lots of submissions, but why not give it a shot?(oh noooo, pun ishment. (but i'm actually never talented enough to do a pun intentionally!)thanks so much for sharing these. they are very inspiring.
best,
mindy
www.cottonarboretum.com/

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this is from the site: "If you think you have a photo that we should share on the Garden Photo of the day, email us. Send hi-res images to mgervais@taunton.com with GPOD in the subject line. We'll only respond if we plan to use your photo."

Here is a link that might be useful: Fine Gardening Photo of the Day