My garden areas' names are largely descriptive of where they are located - e.g. the driveway border (a.k.a. the 'pretty in pink' border because it has a lot of pink flowers in it...), the front bed - which is the main flowery 'cottage' garden, the moat bed (because it runs along the top of the roadside ditch!), the north alley and the south alley gardens, the sideyard - which flows into the south alley garden, the north woodland - part of which is known as 'under the pines' because it's under the white pine trees, the south woodland a.k.a. the oak garden because it's under the red oak tree, the patio garden, the living room bed, and the back lawn. Then there is the herb bed and the 'wet corner'. I think we've pretty much now run out of room to add any more garden areas so the focus now will be on further improving what we have.

I use descriptive names, too. My borders are long, so I am starting to create vignettes (beds within borders) that I'm also starting to name - like the orange & purple bed; blue, red, yellow bed.

When I say "deer resistant" or "outer gardens" that means everything outside my cottage garden fence. So, "cottage garden" is anything inside the fence.

I have a rain garden, fragrance garden, butterfly garden, waterfall garden... but those are all in the deer resistant garden!

And, I have plants everywhere for the butterflies, but I grow host plants and hot colors in the "butterfly garden." Although... that's changing since I'm growing swamp milkweed in my rain garden and the Monarchs prefer that milkweed over my xeric milkweeds.

I confuse myself! LOL

Cameron

I think there are two subjects here, themed gardens and naming beds and zones of the garden.

As far as themed gardens go I don't have any. I would love to have enough space to experiment around with making some though! Maybe it is a good thing I don't do themed gardens though. Once I got started I would end up wanting to make a million of them, lol.

I do have names for various zones of my garden. I use descriptions for the names too, like Alley Garden, Front Shade Garden, Patio Garden, Arbor Garden etc. Little nook gardens are easy to name, but it does get confusing when taling about the largest part of the garden that can't really be named anything.
CMK

I only have one theme and that is my driveway side hill which is my Heather hill, also have the front side, the large back, fence perimeter, and shed side. Pretty much most of my gardens could be interchangeable in plants. Like CMK I don't have the space to do a bunch of themed areas. I guess I should be glad because of the expense and mostly the work. I stay very busy now with what I have.
Cher

I love a theme garden. In my backyard, I have the butterfly bed, bird bed, cottage bed, tea pergola (tea herbs), culinary herbs, lavender bed, patio annuals, vegetables, alliums, fruits, and asparagus. In the front of the house, I have long blooming perennials and then kind of hidden from view, I have the annual cutting bed and a separate perennial/self-seeding annuals cutting bed. I used to have a moon garden, but it just wasn't colorful enough for me to maintain, so I replaced it with the patio annuals bed. Good idea for a thread!!

I also name my garden areas. Of course there is the vegetable garden, I have a big shade garden and a shade garden against the north side of the house, the ravine garden, the raspberry row (100') and the border gardens against the length of the back of the house (80'). This year DH and I have been looking at sheds so that I can finally get the potting shed I've been hoping for for years and then I will actually have the "cottage garden" with the picket fence. I started winter sowing to get ready to fill it in. I hope I'm successful with that. Oh, I also have a cutting garden within the vegetable garden to help with pollination of the veggies. I really like to see what everybody else names their gardens, great thread!

Carol

Mine are...
The back forty... out the back door, turn left, left again around the corner, through an arch, turn left, across a small patio, along side the green house, turn left, down a couple of steps and here lies the back forty, just forty steps from the back door. This is where I grow some of the veggies and fruit amongst other things.

The pool room... enclosed roofed area, U shaped planter around small koi pool with small deck.

The court yard... reclaimed top of driveway, when DH gave his boat to our SIL, yours truly planted a tree and claimed the space as her own. Has a fence on one side covered in Ivy and Actinidia kolomikta with a Clematis and Honeysuckle in the corner. Across from the fence the stucco on the house is covered in Boston Ivy and there's a 6 foot gate on the bottom end. This is mostly a shade garden.

The one thing led to another garden... it just happened a bit at a time (lots of constructive staring). Small pool, low stacked stone wall and gravel path just outside the lathhouse.

Cottage Garden in the making... sandwiched in between vine covered fence, pool room, rose and clematis covered lattice on the back wall of a long shed and a pergola.

Annette

I have a lamb bed - used to be prodominately furry flowers and foliage and was the first garden; now has lost it's identity but we still call it the lamb bed (there is a concrete lamb there; generally concealed by monarda).

The rose garden is all gamble winners (fragrance). Try to keep it all pink, etc.

The autumn border is part of my foliage garden and I use lots of warm but not hot colors there. Peach heuchera, black mondo grass, India Frills coeus, Japanese maples with warm colors spring, summer and fall, a mature hackberry tree, a quaking aspen, blackberry lilies, chinese lanterns, etc. I do have some autumn crocus there that suprise me with pink blooms in autumn. I try to have lots of pink and lavender everywhere in the fall. I also have winter aconite in that bed, gold bonanza barberry, concord barberry, arum italicum, mayapples, cinnamon ferns, tangutica clemmies, C. fargessioides, etc.

I have a winter garden with lots of blues, silvers and whites all year. This is another bed that has nearly lost it's identity. I added a cheddar charm peony and the yellow just messed it all up! I grow papaver somniferums, true blue petunias in many shades, veronica Georgia blue, Vatican white salvia (ooh; ahh!), true blue clemmies, salvia argentea, a cutleaf artimesia that I love from HCG, other artemesias, etc.

Then we have beds that are: Dave side, driveway bed, alley bed, snaps bed, bird bath circle, etc. You have to name them so you can talk about them!

Then of course I have two butterfly borders; the new one and the small one. The small one is 4' X 25' and the new one is 4-12' X 40'. Love those beds. very cottagey and colorful.

I'm starting to experience separation anxiety from my spring and summer gardens.

Mickie

Wow! There are so many great gardens...some I've never even thought of, like the lamb bed and moat garden :)

Roselane- I would love to see the tea pergola...do you sit there and have tea?

I think it's very interesting that some people have theme gardens, some name their gardens by the location, and many do both.

Mickie- I agree! You have to name the garden to talk about it :)

I love hearing everyones ideas here! Even though my gardens arent really sectioned off by theme, i will have a fairy garden under my tree. I just want 1 or 2 statues, a door to add to my tree and a little gravel pathway. My whole garden has a purpose to attract as many butterflies, birds and bees as i can. I love to see those ceatues in my garden. I also saw the cutest gnomes at lowes, i thought i might make them a little garden as well.I was never crazy about gnomes until i saw these !

I've been giving this subject some thot lately as I'm planning my new garden. Right now I have a small herb garden near the patio, an unfinished shade garden, a bird garden with feeder, birdbath, and perennials I allow to go to seed, an overgrown rockery that started as a (mostly) dry garden, and I had a wildflower garden but many in the mix were annual and didn't come back so I've added other plants.

I love the idea of a lamb garden as we used to raise sheep. Have to give that more thot - it could have a lot of lamb's ears in it! Maybe it could also have mostly white with some black flowers as we had both colors of sheep. I have a cute terracotta lamb to put there. Thanks for that idea Mickie!

As much as I like the idea of theme gardens I also want continuity so right now I'm planning meandering paths which I'll edge with (probably) alyssum leading to each area. I will have a labyrinth and am planning a bed encircling it, but not sure what to plant there. Something not too tall, perennial, and that doesn't attract bees. The bees can stay in the rest of my garden but I don't want to think about them when walking the labyrinth! I'm definitely doing a wildflower area, continue to improve my shade garden which will probably also have the fairy garden in it under the trees (last year my fairy garden was in a vintage tin bathtub), and an area with drought tolerant plants (furthest from the house and source of water). I'll continue to have herbs near the patio (and kitchen) and increase this, maybe add some decorative veggies such as rainbow swiss chard, mesclun mix, scarlet runners, and edible flowers such as pansies and nasturtiums. Might even move my rhubarb there. Many of the perennials I have in the mixed borders are herbals from centuries ago so I could include them (yarrow, Lady's Mantle, rue, feverfew, mallow) and call it a Healing Garden.

I recently found a pic of a slope with many types and colors of alpine flowers and thyme which was lovely and I'd love to do that on our back slope. Link below - if you click on the second pic it will enlarge.

One theme I'm seriously planning is "deer-resistant borders" around the entire garden perimeter. Hoping it will help keep them out of the fenced house yard if they smell plants they don't like on the perimeter. At least I'll keep the plants they like best closest to the house where I can chase them away.

So my theme gardens might be:
~ No-deer
~ Labyrinth
~ Shade/fairy
~ Bird friendly
~ Desert/xeriscaping
~ Wildflower
~ Pretty healing garden
~ Alpine/Thyme/Rock garden

Thanks for this thread, it's helping with my planning! And making me realize I either need to set goals for about the next 5 years or find staff! LOL

Here is a link that might be useful: alpine/thyme garden

The main players in my fragrance garden - also based on white blossoms since we use the dining area in the evenings when the white colors, and the fragrance is noticeable. I selected for fragrance during the times we are most likely to dine outside - spring and fall, though I get sporadic blooms in the summer:

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