My Front Garden in July

These pictures were taken a couple of days ago. They show not all but the biggest part of my front garden. It mostly includes shrubs, small trees and perennials. The only annuals here are the petunias in the planter and fuchsia in the hanging basket above the fountain.

Among petunias, you can see the blades of amarylis which bloomed in the house last winter.

Oriental lilies started to bloom. This is Stargazer, a hybrid.

You can see how tall it grows.

Dark purple Japanese maple is in the forefront:

This particular Columbine amazes me by its long blooming period. It bloomed all of June and is still going in July:

White astilbe starts blooming.

Asiatic lilies are also blooming. Did I say lilies? Actually, this is one plant with about seventy blooms. It was a prolific bloomer last year too.

Sun is illuminating my new Japanese maple 'Autumn Moon' (the lower right corner of the picture below). I bought it after visiting an outstanding conifer and maple garden featured here. Its golden leaves tell exactly why it's named this way. Spanish lavender has been blooming non-stop for two months:

 *

Blue and white pansies are still sitting in big containers. Usually they are gone by this time. The beginning of the summer was cool which  allowed them to flourish longer than usual. The central porch is inbetween two Privets (Waxleaf ligustrum) in the left part of the picture. One of the Privets was injured badly in the winter of 2009/2010 by snow that fell from the roof. It lost a lot of branches and looked like a goner. Slowly, it is coming back.

 Euonymus behind the lily needs to be trimmed to stay low:

Looking back toward the garage from the front porch:

Below, in the right part of the picture, you can see an 'island' as I call it, under two huge firs:

The firs steal water and nutrients from the other plants. I try different shrubs and perennials here. Some go and some stay.

Rosemary is doing good and getting along with huge conifers. A rose and a pieris are suffering and have stunted growth.

 Going further past the central entrance of the house:

Campanula is starting to bloom, and daisies show some buds.

  

White astilbe is blooming here too. It spreads wildly, and I dig out small plants for other corners in my garden:

Below is the right side of the house. Behind the metal arches, there is a terrace garden that I show so often in my posts.

I'll continue a tour in the next post.

***Copyright 2011 TatyanaS

Foxglove. My Picture of the Day

***Copyright 2011 TatyanaS

White Garden at The Sarah P. Duke Gardens, NC

Heavenly beautiful, but dangerous! Warning: Seeing this garden can be hazardous to your own garden! It might make you want to tear apart your existing plantings, destroy everything that you created and start building a new all-white paradise.

Visiting the Sarah P. Duke Gardens was a highlight of my trip to North Carolina in June.

What I saw there exceeded my expectations. After spending several hours in the gardens, I was running to the exit trying not to be late for a Duke University campus tour. I didn't know much about the Gardens and believed that I'd seen their best part. It was a total surprise when I bumped into the White Garden. I took my first look and gasped from the thought that I could miss it.

The beauty of white color  - classic, elegant, innocent, serene...

 

 I liked everything about this garden - its layout, geometry, choice of plants, combinations, containers... everything.

 

I learned some facts about the White Garden later. At the time of my visit, there were just emotions. How can I describe them? I was charmed, inspired, moved, touched and excited....

Liatris, lily of the Nile, coneflowers, cleome, perennial phlox, canna, monarda.... tell me what other perennials you see here. Grasses, annuals, agaves and shrubs, many with variegated foliage, add so much to the garden's charm!

This is a new, young garden!

Crystal Cotton in her article tells the story behind the garden's creation.
The full name of the garden is Page-Rollins White Garden in the Doris Duke Center Gardens. The idea and inspiration for it came from the famous Sissinghurst Castle Garden, England with its garden rooms. Jason Holmes, curator of the Doris Duke Center Gardens, created a Southeastern U.S. version of it. It is said in the article that the garden will be a knockout when it's fully developed. Well, it WAS already a knockout for me!

I hope you enjoy the pictures and get some ideas for your own garden!

Pure joy...

Isn't white a wonderful color? I got curious about what shades of white could exist: polar white, pearl, seashell, eggshell, ghost white, isabelline, ivory, magnolia, old lace, cream, latte, vanilla (are you craving for coffee, reading this?) beige, anti-flash white and white (Wikipedia).

Don't you want to introduce more white plants into your own garden now?

This new garden will grow and get more beautiful over time. How glad I am to have a glimpse of it in its beginning stage and capture some pictures of it in its infancy! How interesting it'll be to make comparisons later on!

Mr. Holmes believes that 'the peak for this garden should be in the next three years, just because the perennials and shrubs have a maturation period'.

 If you find yourself in Durham, North Carolina, don't miss a chance to see this outstanding newborn garden!

Visit The Sarah P. Duke Gardens site

***Copyright 2011 TatyanaS

My Columbines' Different Personalities

 There are two types of columbine (aquilegia) in my garden. They have absolutely different personalities.

 

This one, pink and cream, is  joyful and cheerful. It moves, dances and laughs.

 It is curious and peeks here and there.

It is cute, happy and loves itself and the world around it. 

 It loves to show itself and asks for compliments.

The other columbine is dark purple and looks almost black from a distance.  

 It is dramatic, almost tragic.

 It is philosophical and shy.

It appears to be sad.

 It  turns away its face. 

But, I might be wrong. Maybe, everything is simple. The first one is happy because it grows in front of the house in a very prominent place. And, maybe the second one is sad because its place is behind the house, far from the crowds of admirers.

***Copyright 2011 TatyanaS