Monday 6 June 2016

A Day Out

The first peas have been picked, trays of strawberries line the freezer, hot weather plants have been moved from greenhouse to garden and a cool house has been created for lettuce, spinach and brussel sprouts. Time for a busman's gardener's holiday.

Sunday was the annual garden tour. I made it through all eleven gardens in six hours and thirty degree heat. I'll dot some of the 139 pictures I took through upcoming posts. Today I want to show you my number one favourite from the tour.


I can tell you are excited....not.  This is going to be hard to explain and I'm not sure the images really capture the story but here goes. This was a garden created in a clearing in the forest. The beds are laid out in concentric circles to mimic the leaves, petals and stamen of a flower. In the centre is a round bed, seen above. 


The watering device in the centre turns 360 degrees and reaches to the outer circle. Plants who get upset about wet leaves are planted beyond its reach.


Rope trellis for tomatoes and further out fruit bushes. These had separate watering systems.


The beds were only about 30" inches wide. The planting was very precise. 


Those strict lines seemed to result in dense growth. I suspect there was some filling in with a second planting. The whole garden was surrounded by a high picket fence. Empty pots were scattered throughout to encourage weeding.


Carrot beds were on 20" high cement bases and then surrounded by Reemay fabric to outwit the carrot rust fly which is a low flyer. The CRF is a big problem in these parts.


An arbour provides a spot to sit. Beyond it a chicken coop.

Whimsical, practical, with a hint of mystery, it couldn't fail to delight me.

15 comments:

  1. Love that shady arbor--it would be nice to sit there with a cold beverage after a bout of weeding.

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    1. A sitting spot is essential in my opinion.

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  2. I have worked so hard on my gardens and they look so amateurish compared to those.

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    1. This garden, though the most interesting and inventive, was way too tidy to ever be repeated in my garden.

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  3. Your favourite garden is very interesting with lots of ideas to think about. I love the arbour - I'd really like have something like that here.

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    1. An arbour is on my list, currently we sit in the carport which is far from sophisticated but does have a nice view of the garden.

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  4. What interesting gardens with their own unique elements. Thank you for sharing.

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    1. There is always something to learn on these tours even if the styles aren't always to my taste.

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  5. I love the idea of setting out empty pots - I use buckets. It does really encourage weeding, as I can weed a few minutes here and there, and toss the weeds in the bucket. I wonder how long it took to create that garden? It is beautiful. I can only dream about a garden like that.

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    1. I'm going to adopt the bucket idea, right now weeds don't always get tossed into appropriate receptacles. The garden was a redesign of a more convential layout and fairly recent.

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  6. Very interesting garden. I should try and find garden tours in my area.

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  7. Very clever! Tours can be very inspiring. :o)

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  8. What a great garden and so organized and lovely. Don't tell those carrot rust flies where my floating garden is up the lake. Haven't seen any yet. But the slugs and onion maggots sure know where to go. Haven't figured out an organic way of dealing with them except to cut out the spots and eat away. I planted strawberries in what I hope will be a self watering small bed along the side of the garden float. I love to experiment. So far it still needs lots of watering, but when the lake water gets warmer I plan to dive under and make sure the tails of cut towels are deep enough in the water to absorb some. - Margy

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