I Met a Cottage Gardener

This is her beautiful bittersweet arbor. It must look amazing in fall
and winter when the berries are ripe. You reach it by going up a flight of stairs.

After you pass through the arbor, you turn left
and find this lovely little garden room!

And this is what it looks like when you look up in the
arbor- so dense! It must be at least ten degrees cooler than the
rest of the yard on a hot summer day.

It was so cozy and peaceful and such a labor of love! This gardener is a warm person and her personality is really reflected in her garden. It's very much her own. The other cool thing is that she will be coming over here to help us with design. I think I would like our garden to be a sort of cross between the two styles. Neato keen, garden nerds!

PS: That's American bittersweet, the endangered native that she's using, not the invasive Oriental that's choking out all kinds of good stuff.

Perennial Bed

Before (taken in late April or early May) and after (taken this month). No matter how much you plan, a flower bed doesn't ever come out exactly the way you envisioned it.

I could never have anticipated the bee balm getting so tall. It was supposed to be around 3 ft, so I planted the Korean Angelica behind it- that's supposed to top out around 5 ft later in the summer. As of right now, the bee balm is hiding it, but it hasn't bloomed yet, so I'm hoping the bee balm will have finished by then and I can cut it back. Angelica needs room to shine!

Also, I unwittingly got a dwarf variety of sea holly (eryngium). It's pretty, but only about a foot tall. No cut flowers for me and it needs to be moved so it shows more. Lots of work to do out there. Thinking out loud now... I'd better stop before the Boring-O-Meter starts flashing.