An old dear friend now on to the next great experience.

Picea engelmannii 'Bush's Lace'

Lilium 'Big Brother' and my wife with a arm full of peppers

Picea abies 'Summer Daze' putting up a new leader due to loosing the original to a terminal cone.

My gardening buddy Cluck Norris

Pinus densiflora 'Golden Ghost'

Juniperus communis 'Horstmann'

Pinus thunbergii 'Shirome Janome' - BIG grower!

lastly my favorite photo of the year, Ogon and friend

Beautiful garden! Thanks for sharing!

A splendid garden with an interesting array of plants combined with a personal touch. Very nice. BTW, I've tried to talk my spouse into getting some chickens, but she won't hear of it.

Love it all, what an awesome last pic! Great looking trees, you are in God's country for sure. Does Cluck Norris let you pet him? How long have you lived there? Keep on keepin on!

Very nice Garen! I always enjoy photos of your garden.

Random comments: Love the color in the Acer 'Moonrise'. That is a gigantic lily. The 'Golden Ghost' is quite an oddity, in a good way. I've seen an oddly large number of praying mantis this season. Sorry to hear about your Ogon, and especially your K9 friend. You've also got a beautiful collection of chickens, lol. My city just passed an ordinance to allow them, but can't free range them :(

One more thing. What is the maple(?) in pic 24 (or 4 from bottom)? It has a cool texture. Does it color in the fall?

Thanks for posting!

Very nice with good color and balance. I know what it takes to put that kind of garden together. I am impressed.

superb .....

it all reminds of someone i used to know ... when he was in the middle of it all ... but i dont remember his name ....

could you favor us with a pic from your favorite deck chair .... the rolling hills in the far distance.. look cool ... refresh my memory of where you are ... and provide a general area name ... as in.. foothills of Appalachia.. or some such ... z6 doesnt quite help me recall ... lol...

thanks for taking the time to post this ...

ken

Wow Garen, Youve been busy! The whole setting looks killer....Never a problem with drainage. Your bush's lace and green arrow like everything else looks flat out fantastic.

Very nice integration of a conifer collection with other complimentary and contrasting plant forms and textures!! This is exactly the process or methodology attempted to be explained on the design question thread :-))

And the maple in question looks to be 'Mikawa Yatusbusa' ( or a similar dwarf form like Hupp's Dwarf) but would need Garen to confirm :-)

Lucky man all around!

Do you have to put sunscreen on near that Golden Ghost?...thing is blazing!

Wow, is this really the work of a hobby gardener with a full time job, a family to take care of, etc.?

I love the Juniperus communis 'Horstmann'. How old is it? I love the combination of flowers! they mix in really well with the landscape.

I'm inspired! Thanks for posting.

Your garden is coming along nicely with some very nice selected plants.

Mike

Thank's so much everyone!

Warning, chicken stuff, skip to the next paragraph.

Pete and maackia - Norris was a young cockerel when we rescued him from our local animal shelter. We raised him like a dog, letting him in the house to hang out, taking him for walks and car rides, so he is extremely loving and personable unlike most roosters that usually just want to beat the crap out of you. He's my bro but he does get mad and pecks me if I don't pick him up, pet him, and give him attention when I first greet him. He talks a lot (in chicken of course) and is a huge benefit for keeping the flock safe, alerting them to take cover when hawks and eagles are near. We have bald eagles and hawks that like to routinely scope out our lot. I can't preach enough about how cool chickens are if you spend time with them and don't mind having your mulch strewn across the lawn lol.

I've had this property for about 15 years. My gardening obsession was spawned in 2009 when I cleared a bunch of locust, hedge apple, and black walnut trees, then planted a dawn redwood and a few other trees. I stumbled upon these forums and it was all over from there. Bless/Damn you enablers and your irresistible conifer crack.

coniferbros - No free range! Free range = free chicken feed during spring and summer = free eggs = more than you can eat, renewable, complete protein made by happy deck pooping garden pals. Ok, I apologize for all the chicken talk. =)

The maple is indeed Acer palmatum 'Mikawa Yatsubusa'. One of my fav's. Colors up in fall. 'Hupp's Dwarf' is nice as well and slower growing. I need one of those too.

Ken - I'm in rural Patriot Indiana (Population 205) overlooking the Ohio river, 50 min down river from Cincinnati. I would happily give you a photo from my deck chair but it has fallen through my neglected, rotting, white trash deck. =) The surrounding trees have grown since I bought the place and now block most of my view of the river but the view is visible in the winter and especially nice at sunrise. If you find the time, I would love to see some recent views of your great place again.

Ontario - I don't have kids, just a lot of furry and feathered friends. My wife does certified wildlife rehab. It's not unusual to see me doing my gardening at night, after along day at work, with a headlamp, sometimes in the rain, wearing a Chinese rice paddy hat. Thank god I don't have close neighbors. They would think that I'm a meth head lol.

Gardening is my meditation from the stresses of the day.

stewartlawrence - The Juniperus communis 'Horstmann' is a wild one. I've had it about 3 years now. I love it and it has taken off in all directions this year.

July 2014.

July 2015

Sept 2016

Thanks so much for the photos. The garden is gorgeous, and I enjoy the combination of perennials, annuals and deciduous woodies you've planted along with the conifers. I am also enjoying looking back through your photos from previous years; nice to see how the garden has evolved over time.

I love the colors. It's supreme! Photo of that red-leafed Japanese maple with all the perennials is one I personally love.

Dax

Very nice collection.

I'm impressed your weeping Larix is doing so well, because the cultivars are presumably all grafted onto Larix decidua or (gasp) even Larix occidentalis. Whatever the PNW wholesalers can easily get their hands on, seed-wise. Not that I'm claiming to be some expert grower, but the one grafted Larix I tried died on me pretty quickly and I suspect the roots couldn't survive here.

Garen,

Thanks for the pics. I love your Larix, I managed to kill quite few of them so I gave up on it.

John N.

Thanks again.

The Larix kaempferi 'Pendula' was planted in 2011 as a small scraggly stick that I didn't have much hope's for. Since then it has grown immensely every year. The leader even grew four feet one year. Of course I had to stake it to keep it going up. I'm not sure why it's been so happy. Perhaps it's all the water runoff from my driveway and the great drainage from being planted high on a slope. It did get pretty shabby looking later this year due to Japanese beetles amassing to it like a magnet. I also had an explosion of bag worms on everything. I still have some left to irradicate in my tallest blue spruce. I'll get the last of them this spring with a sprayer as I can't reach the high ones. I've learned my lesson to meticulously search every plant in the yard if you find a bag worm or you'll have hell to pay the next year. A single bag worm can multiply into a thousand the next year. I ended up picking off buckets full!

I've been meaning to do another post showing the growth of the Larix every year I've had it. I need to take the time to dig through my older photos and do some "Five years of" posts like Will Fletcher (firefightergardener) used to do here on Gardenweb.

I lost a Larix kaempferi 'Walterdingen' that shriveled up in the heat this year and my Larix decidua 'Horstmann' had a hard time, loosing most of it's needles mid summer, but it pulled through.