Thursday 24 June 2010

Farm garden tour - Part 4

This is the final post of my farm garden tour. Today we'll wander about the side of the house, and to the vege garden out the back. Last post, we walked along the front of the house and turned left at the silver birches. If we take a right turn instead, across the stepping stones, we head down the eastern side of the house.



The stepping stones lead to a meandering lawn which swings in and out, corresponding to bedroom windows on this side of the house.

This is the view from the main bedroom window. I got a great deal on some standard Iceberg roses, so they dominate this part of the garden, planted on either side of the lawn. They are underplanted with catmint, irises and borders of a variegated geranium.



On my last post, Hanady (all the way from Egypt!) asked if I started with a design for the garden. We did sketch out a design for the front portion of the garden, but this side garden just evolved over time. I love this part of the garden - lots of curves, creating a sense of anticipation as you wonder what is around the next corner!

We spent a lot of time thinking about the garden from the inside of the house - thinking about what we wanted to see from each window. So each room of the house has its own little view, with 'appropriate' plantings. For example, the garden outside my son's room has lots of burgundy, orange & purple flowering plants, no pink!



Walking around the back of the house, you will see more meandering lawn, and my 'Burgundy Iceberg' hedge! There is a story here. I went off to a end-of-season rose sale a few years ago, promising my sweetness to purchase just two climbing roses that we needed. I returned with a car full of the white Iceberg standards I mentioned ($7.50 each, I couldn't leave them there!) and a bundle of Burgundy Icebergs tied up with string. I paid $20 for the bundle, and when I untied the string, discovered there were 42, I say 42, roses in the bundle! We had just finished the winter prune on the roses, not my Sweetness' favourite job. He threatened that the only way these 42 new roses were going to get pruned was with the chainsaw! So my Burgundy Iceberg hedge was born. It gets trimmed VERY roughly with the hedge trimmer and flourishes!



As much as my Sweetness might hate rose pruning, he LOVES to build stuff. I asked for a frame in the vege garden to grow my snow peas on. I got this!



The vege garden is at the back of the house, straight out from the kitchen window. This is what I see from the sink:



I wanted a vege garden that was 'pretty' and a nice place to be as well us functional, hence the 'Pierre de Ronsard' entrance! There is a small circular lawn with a fruiting crabapple in the centre. I have planted strawberries as a border around the lawn. We plant vegetables in straight lines radiating from the centre. It works really well.



Ferne asked about our paths. We have used decomposed granite for all our pathways. It is inexpensive, blends naturally with the garden, and drains quickly. We love it.

So that's about it. I could bore you silly for days with details, but I will spare you! I would much prefer to be taking you all on a 'real life' tour, but this virtual one is the second best thing.




So from my garden to yours, bloom and be happy!

28 comments:

  1. I loved every part of your virtual tour. Your love of gardening and talent for colours and textures is very apparent, Bloom. You have an amazing and gorgeous garden. Thanks so much for the tour!

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  2. Thank-you for sharing - Your garden is divine! Just beautiful and inspirational!

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  3. Such an amazing garden, truly pulls at the heart strings. Beautiful and practical at the same time. If you ever do have a 'real life' tour count me in!!

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  4. How long did it take to get the garden to this stage? We completed our dream home (on 20 acres) just 9 months ago. I've started the gardens, but it sure seems like mostly what you see from my windows are weeds! It can be discouraging - particularly when it is 100 degrees out there in the summer and I really don't want to tackle that.

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  5. Your gardens are very beautiful! Thanks for answering my question...inquiring minds always want to know!

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  6. What a spectacular garden - truly splendid. Speechless, I'm actually speechless.....

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  7. Beautiful once again. I will be leaving your blog open on the vegie garden frame so hubby stumbles across it tonight. I'm currently growing them on old bed frames, it still works but is no where near as pretty.

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  8. Thank you for sharing your garden with us. Have enjoyed every pic. Very envious of the vegie garden....heaven to have a vegie garden.. as opposed to a few pots.

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  9. Thanks I enjoyed this part too!. The value of a vertual tour is it stays as you saw it. Nothing messed by wind or rain. No spent blooms, but of course the downside is no perfume.
    Your ( garden's ) curved edges are fabulous, and the lawn looks amazing( no weeds ). Almost makes me want to replant the part of ours that got swept away in a landslide/ flood. I said almost....it's not flat and I am getting passed doing all that work.
    Please keep showing us the seasonal changes in your wonderful property.

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  10. Thanks for the tour... totally enchanting and I am totally inspired to make my garden a miniture haven...
    Hugs Dawn x x x

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  11. Fairy Girl and I are love the garden and she also said hi to your munchkins too.......

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  12. Absolutely stunning. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour. ~karen

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  13. I'm still in AWE! You have done an amazing job and your Husband seems to be a great help. Thanks again for the tour. Wish I could be there with a cuppa. Take care

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  14. Your garden is such ac credit to you ,what a wonderful place all your hard work has produced ,Ihave so enjoyed the tour and chat as we go ,telling about each area as we come to it ,..love Jan xx

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  15. I loved this tour, and am insanely jealous esp about this time of year when I know all my gardens are about to burn up with our heat and dry weather. I would love to know if this has taken you several years, or decades, or months to achieve--and if you did it bit by bit, like making a quilt.

    Lovely, just lovely.

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  16. Hi Ros. Your garden is always beautiful. i have tagged you in a post, hope you dont mind, and have time to do your homework I gave you. Haha. Chat soon. xx

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  17. Thank you Ros for the lovely tour. ALthough I spent the day at your place a couple of years ago sewing, there is SO much of your garden I didn't see. It was just lovely....
    *How fitting - Word verification = patients* LOL!

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  18. amazing garden Bloom you must spend a lot of time out there! your roses are incredible. thanks for sharing your part of the world full credit to you and your hubby

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  19. again...Beautiful! Any other word isn't enough.You wrote that this part of the garden hadn't a project, no design,just evolved! i admire your sense of beauty and harmony you have expressed in this way.
    Hanady .. ..

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  20. The tour was most beautiful and breathtaking, my dear friend. Thank you for sharing.
    Happy Quilting!

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  21. Looks like a Chinese elm on the left of the last photo.....had a huge one which I had to pull down and have the root drilled out to make way for an extension and I so miss it but it still spawns baby ones near where it was so have one to 6ft height now at the back corner so will enjoy its beauty again. I am so envious of your space...grew up on the land and even though I have a good sized block I am restricted when I see specials like those roses and huge trees. So thank you for the photos.....I shall drool and enjoy,. It looks so beautifully neat where mine is just coming back from the drought.....hope against hope some of the things which used to come up as weeds may still emerge such as borage and love in the mist and some bluebells in white and blue...they were not a bulb but I gave so many away and alas now they are gone and I know not the name to buy them again.
    When I lost the ability to kneel with knee replacements making kneeling like kneeling on a bed of nails I lost the capacity to weed and plant...My handyman does his best but it is just not the same.....so I shall keep drooling.

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  22. I haven't visited your blog for ages. What a beautiful garden you have, I wish mine looked as good this time of year but that's what happens when you live in a climate of extremes(NE Victoria), very hot & dry in the summer and very cold & frosty in winter. Still love it though. Keep up the great work. Michelle

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  23. I have just found your blog and loved it
    Your garden is spectacular
    Well done

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  24. Absolutely wonderful and calming garden! Thank you so much for sharing all this pictures!

    Best wishes,
    Tatyana

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  25. What a beautiful garden! I would so much love a Sunday walk through those roses...

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  26. Beautiful garden - looks so restful. I imagine lots of happy times spent there. I have linked to you on my blog today as I made a journal cover using your tutorial.. thanks.

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  27. Congratulations, your photography is wonderful and your garden simply magic. I think you might have found your calling in garden design! My only question is - wheres the farm? My mother use to try her utmost to hide the view from the family farm house of the ugly silos, machinery shed and Dad's collection of junk otherwise known to men like your father, as stuff they might need one day.
    Happy quilting, Sue SA

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