More garden rooms

Garden rooms - distinct areas with the garden as a whole - fun and creative.  Most of us have them although not everyone thinks in terms of garden rooms, or names theirs. In a prior post, I shared images from our cottage garden, picket fence garden, courtyard garden, pond garden, daylily junction and hosta farm. Today I have a few more garden rooms to share with you.

Here is Lupin Corner. This is an image from this spring. The area now could just as well be called Larkspur Corner or Coneflower Corner, as those are what are blooming there in July. Love my lupins!

 The potager/kitchen garden/raised beds, and on the right, the herb garden

 Other edibles in the garden are blueberries. We have 4 bushes and so far have 40 cups of berries in the freezer. I've also baked a pie and a crumble and given some away. Many people don't think of growing blueberries in Iowa, but mine have done well. The secret: acid soil. I amend mine with sulfur or aluminum sulfate. Works for me!

 Here's the Rocky garden, so named because of the several large rocks strategically placed. :)
This is not a rock garden. A rock garden typically has alpine type plants.

Here is the Triangle. There are a few trees and shrubs, hostas, tulips etc. A nice area between the larger gardens as you walk toward the hosta farm.

I also have a rose garden in front, a hosta bed in front, and two side gardens on the sides of the house.

Hope you enjoyed seeing a little something at our house besides the cottage garden (my most-photographed).

A few of our garden Rooms

Garden rooms are distinct areas within the gardens as a whole. Here at Sunsplash Gardens, we have several garden rooms.

Sharing a few today:

COTTAGE GARDEN:

The cottage garden is my favorite area of the garden, well, usually it is...sometimes, due to profuse bloom in another area, I'll say a different garden room is my favorite. A cottage garden is informal with dense plantings. It looks lush and exuberant.

PICKET FENCE GARDEN:

DAYLILY JUNCTION:

This area is blooming prolifically now. I love it!

 'Inner Destiny'

 'Jungle Beauty'

 'Strawberry Candy'

 'Winter Treasure'

 'Blueberry Candy'

'Julie Fassett'

THE COURTYARD AND THE COURTYARD GARDEN:

Sophia in the courtyard garden

This garden is new after our garden re-do last fall. I've planted two climbing roses there and a 'Limelight' hydrangea, among other things. I'll have to show you more as it develops over time. 

POND GARDEN:

 Quickly becoming a favorite garden room; can you see why?

HOSTA FARM:

This large garden room traverses the width of the property. It's on the fencerow shared with the horse pasture.

We have about 1000 hostas in various gardens - by far the most reside in the hosta farm.

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of our garden rooms. At another time, I'll show you additional garden rooms here at Sunsplash Gardens.

Self sowing in the garden; do you or don't you?

Do you allow annuals to self sow in your garden?
Or do you "Preen?"
Or pull the seedlings?
I do pull quite a few, because when I allow self sowing, I always get WAY more plants than I need.

Despite the inconvenience of this extra "weeding", I let the following beauties go to seed and grow...it's almost like an annual becoming a perennial!

 Larkspur and an annual rudbeckia

 Somniferum Poppy 'Candy Floss'

 Nigella - pretty in pink
a/k/a Love-in-a-mist

The more common blue nigella

Cleome 

Verbena bonariensis - this is a butterfly magnet

Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate

 Of course there are perennials that go to seed and produce new plants as well. A couple of examples from my garden are echinacea and monarda.

So, do you or don't you allow self sowing? For me, it brings me some extra effort but a lush cottage garden look which is worth it to me.

It's another nice summer morning and once I finish my cup of tea I'll take little Josey for a walk, and then I'll be heading down the garden paths both to enjoy, and to work...and to look for a lost shoe! Our neighbors visited last night and somehow their little boy lost a CROC! Hope we can find it in this dense "jungle" of plants!

Another day, another bloomer

Another weekend past, a new week has begun and it looks like it will be a productive one around here. That means I have a lot of tasks on my "to do" list.  lol

While Josey was at the groomer, I baked a blueberry pie. I have an abundance of blueberries for the third straight year. There are plenty in the freezer already for two more pies - and lots of berries yet to ripen. I had blueberries on my oatmeal the past two days as well.

Of course I also had to take a garden walk....

 Another view from above - this one is taken from a second story window to give a broader view. My backyard is bordered by our neighbor's chain link fence on the left, and our other neighbor's wooden fence on the right - and in back, not visible, is farm fence topped with barbed wire. If you look closely a horse is barely visible in the pasture behind our house (look just above the garden shed).

Also in this photo you can see our triangular garden, where we have a Black spruce, a flowering crabapple 'Prairie Fire,' a buckeye tree, azaleas, burning bushes, and a few perennials.

In regard to the garden, you can see a line (it needs edging again, but you can see the line between lawn and garden). The edge of this large garden area goes over to the right and ends at the garden shed.

 Here is the cottage garden at dusk. Lots of color, and lilies (left in photo) are about to bloom.

 Speaking of lilies, here's oriental 'Eleana,' a double that is very fragrant and her beauty is captivating.

 This is Asiatic 'Paris heart.'

 I love coneflowers - one of my favorite flowers. They are abundant in my garden. I will have hundreds, maybe even a thousand, blooms this summer. Someone who knew of my love for coneflowers asked if I have any of the fancy ones. Not so much. I do have a white coneflower; yes, just one...

 ...and a couple of 'Cheyenne Spirit' echinacea,

 as well as a couple of Echinacea pallida (Pale purple coneflower)

Most of my coneflowers are from seed. I harvested seed at the Iowa State Fairgrounds years ago. My plants have self-sown prolifically over the years. Now, I know I've bought a coneflower or two over time, for they are not all the same cultivar. Some of them have a greenish stem and some an almost black stem.

 Hemerocallis, or daylilies are another of my favorite flowers. This garden room is Daylily Junction. There are many daylilies here, as well as true lilies and a few other plants along the fence row.

 This is 'Happy Apple.'

 'Double River' growing beside the bee balm

 'Bold Stripe'

 'Black eyed Susan'

 Name not known

 'Custard Candy' - love, love, love this beauty!

 Another candy: 'Blueberry Candy'
I also have 'Strawberry Candy' and 'Wineberry Candy,' neither of which are blooming yet.

 A very pretty red is 'Whooperie.'

 'Joe Marinello'

 'Joel'

The cleome are just beginning to bloom too.

 Just another view showing our pergola. The stream and pond are in front of the courtyard and pergola, and are hidden by flowers in this photo.

 Rain lilies

Mama (or Papa) Wren with an insect to feed the babies residing in this birdhouse. It's amazing to watch the two wrens; they work continuously to keep their babies fed! 

Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27"And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? Matthew 6:26, 27

Have a great week in the garden - or wherever you choose to spend it!