Well gee. No one wants to play. I thought some of you might enjoy a unique and different landscape to ponder. Oh well. The lighting was much better yesterday for picture taking. The wheels are spinning. A new garden the size of many urban lots will be planted in the spring.

I see a wedding cake.

I've been working on getting the open air covered space you have on the left three years running, bigger and a nudge higher up. Your amphitheater layout was given much consideration. It would have been a stretch with the walls curved in the wrong direction and involved too much concrete. The stability of the old walls themselves was a concern. It is highly likely they don't have proper footings.

OK, having hosted four garden weddings on my own property now, I do have advice to offer. Study the lighting throughout your season for all of the times of day so you know where the optimum seating and ceremony arrangements will be for both photographs and comfort (i.e., not facing a blinding sun). Because this will change over the course of the season and each day, I suggest you consider a flexible setup. Instead of a permanent gazebo, you might have a movable arbor. It can be planted with vines in containers or hanging pots. Another argument for flexibility is that you can offer a variety of styles of ceremony and reception. Some couples may want an intimate ceremony in the woods. You will also have different parts of the garden in full glory at different times. You can have the azalea wedding, the peony & rose, the daylily, the autumn.. Sunrise, sunset, nighttime. I don't mean to exhaust you with too many options, but just make you aware that you have the potential to offer many, so may not want to lock yourself into just one.

Wineries and wedding venues are one of our niches. What's the projected size of wedding they're planning to host? Even going from 150 to 200 guests is a huge change in requirements, never mind going from 50 to 100.

It's important to know where the bridal party will get ready, where power is available, and where everything gets staged. Lawn areas that you think drain well turn out to hold more water than you think when 200 guests are on them.

Most importantly, weddings = drunk people and drunk people = a-holes. Design to keep them safe, and to discourage mischief. One guest left a winery wedding at 1 am and decided to take his 4x4 lifted brodozer and do donuts in the lawn areas all down the driveway. We're constantly fixing lights that get knocked over, and occasionally replacing ones that get stolen. If it's not nailed down, someone will try and grab it.

kitasei you are so right about flexibility and options. This new garden will be another option for smaller wedding parties, an addition to the main wedding set up that has a gazebo. I am also now leaning towards an arbor instead of another covered gazebo because I'd like it be more see through. The rain option is set. I hate the way they did it with a hideous plastic tent and have been offering a better idea three years running. This new garden would be for open air ceremonies. I have to let the photographers worry about the lighting. The fact that the property is on a north facing slope helps a lot.

Revolutionary Gardens the place is already set for 150 max. This is an expansion of the existing set up as an option for smaller weddings. I am forever telling the event manager function comes first and to please speak up in that regard since I do not work the weddings. That function absolutely has to take drunks and small children into consideration. The gardens have to adapt around that, otherwise they just get wrecked making a mess for me to clean up. I have made changes to a number of things based on the evidence left behind.

Due to the climate and the particular site conditions here, wet grass is more the norm than the exception. Women in heels, not just the bride's is a huge design factor. It causes a bit of tension since I would prefer to limit the amount of concrete covering already wet ground.

I'm def jealous, it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun to design!

Making this post did nudge me past procrastination to work on the planting design. I can't see anything getting planted until mid-April at the earliest. I was in no rush. The Lady of The House is another matter. She and I have now agreed on a design.

Basically I will be planting a hillside with four evenly spaced level terraces and a fifth wider sloped terrace. The overall space is 70' top to bottom with a 30' elevation drop. It is 40' wide at the top (large grass area up top) and 100' wide at the bottom.

I will plant it first. All built features will follow. That's how they roll here. I don't argue with the Lady of The House. They can afford to do things twice. I think she needs to see the room first in order to pick her furnishings.

The Wedding Cake Garden: Each tier will be planted as a solid block as follows, starting with tier one at the top.

Brilliance Autumn Fern

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White Variegated Hosta 'Patriot'

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Geranium 'Biokovo'

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Grass (if it grows) Path

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Vinca minor 'Illumination' as a groundcover for this whole terrace.

Top to bottom

One row of Brilliance Autumn Fern

Double rows of a white Spirea japonica 'Conspiyet'

Quarter row of Blue Star Juniper above falls

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Grass Service Road

So spread that like frosting across this picture. Vinca minor 'Illumination' will also be used as the groundcover beneath the large trees upslope from the top terrace.

Here it is, the Wedding Cake Garden left out in the rain - June 2019. About time. I was tired of watering the thing.

All that is left to plant is the Vinca minor 'Illumination'.

It's lovely!

I think there're some Ideas from the "garden" wedding to implement on the board Big Smile There's a ton of quite interesting and unusual ideas, here's a good list, for instance, wedding packages nyc