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!