More Wind from the Hollow Farm

Here are a few more before-after pictures of Windy Hallow Farm.  The front yard was full of weeds, overgrown shrubs and plants and old, broken slabs of stone for a forgotten pathway.  Although, grass hasn't been planted yet, you can see the improvement already.

The previous own had filled the peremiter of the house with these stones; once we began the project, the excavator realized the stones had been put in about two feet too high, so it all had to be dug out and regraded to prevent rotting of the foundation. It was a dirty job, but sadly necessary.  Bluck.  I was covered with rock dirt for days.













To distract the eye away from this meter and to soften the angles of the house, we curved the sidewalk out and around the entire front.  In this garden area,I added a dwarf Japanese Maple for height and color.  Although it's difficult to see, there is a huge spirea in the corner which I salvaged from another spot on the property. Then I planted double knock out roses, a viburnum, delphinium, rudbeckia, and dark red echinacia.

This beautiful hosta was also salvaged from the property.  It is perfect nestled in this curve.













As you can see, this side of the house was in need of serious attention.  To keep costs down, I was able to grab these two huge boxwoods and this spirea.  When it becomes available, I am going to plant a winterberry bush in the space between the boxwood and spirea.

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This is around the corner and shows the flow of the garden.  Again, I have double knock out roses, daisies and hydrangea.  It is a fairly low maintenance garden and suits the farm.

Next up: Window boxes!

Windy Hollow Farm

Once again, I have neglected my blog, but it's raining today, so I am allowing myself to sit in front of the computer and play.  Yea!

I wanted to begin showing some pics of a new project we've been working on.  This farm is a diamond in the rough and has been a blast to design.  The goal was to completely reinvent the personality around the perimeter of the home, make the front entrance obvious (there are two entry ways), create a fairly low maintenance farm garden, design an outdoor eating/living area and rethink the parking.  We divided these into phases and have completed phase one.  I'm going to put up a few pictures to give you an idea of where we are in the process.

This is a picture of the side porch. It had great possibilites, but needed some imagination to make it an inviting space for the family.  I loved the pew and the firewood rack was necessary, so they were staying.  Then I began rummaging through the owner's home, and barn, and went to a local antique dealer; this is the result.

I found this adorable table in the owner's family room...with a TV on top of it.   Thankfully she was great about re-purposing it for the porch. The old clay pots, I grabbed at a Strawberry Festival in Falmouth, MA when I was on vacation, and the rest of the containers I found at www.oldeengineworks.com - my very favorite antique mall (by the way, thank you to my right hand man, Patrick, for pointing out that the really cool bucket I thought was for sifting millet or something is actually a minnow bucket and he has one just like it in his garage that I could have had for free) .

The side view picture shows an old buggy bench seat that I also sneaked out of the house (but it was full of jackets, so no on noticed).  Because I was able to use quite a few pieces the owners already had, the cost of this porch transformation was kept quite low.

Once the door has been repainted, the porch will be finished.  I'm really excited to post more about this project.

So much to do, so little time in which to do it....

It has been CRAZY around here for me this spring!  Which, in this economy, is good thing.  But I'm finding myself stretched pretty thin (figuratively speaking, unfortunately) and anxious about doing a good job for my clients.  One day at a time...

I want to jot down a few quick thoughts while I am shopping for pots online and before I run out to work on this glorious rainy, windy day (dread, dread, dread).

If you haven't worked your soil yet, please stop planting and do so.  By this I mean, turn your soil over and mix in all the left over mulch from last year - dig deeply enough to ensure you're mixing actual soil with the mulch.  Also check the quality of your soil; if it seems dry and used up, consider adding some top quality compost to it.  I mix in about an inch of mushroom compost to my gardens every few years - it does wonders.  This picture is pretty boring, but this is what mine looked like last week: delicious.






Now for the fun stuff!  One of my clients has a huge, awful looking retaining wall.  After much thought, I decided to do what I could to incorporate it into the garden rather than just try to hide it with plants and flowers.










So we knocked some holes in it                                                

   (see http://thecottagegardenerblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/beauty-is-in-eye-of-beholder.html) and I began using it as my backdrop.







With good watering, these flowers will take root and grow beautifully in the wall.

Take time to think about what you are trying to hide and consider the possibility of using it as a canvas instead.   It could be a new beginning of wonderful, creative ideas!

Well, I'm off to slog through this downpour...gotta plant!

A bit of color in the spring gloom

I am interrupting my fall retrospective of 2010 and zipping forward to spring 2011.

I know it's supposed to rain in the spring and I am very grateful for it...but for crying out loud, enough is enough!  It has been COLD and WET and GLOOMY here 5.5 out of 7 days a week here.  I am about dying for some warmth and sun and color.

So last week I threw in some flowers to cheer myself and my client up a bit.  For those of you in the same glum boat, enjoy...

Spring is here (believe it or not), Easter will be here next week, and although it is too early to begin planting permanent pots for the season, there are some hardier flowers that can withstand the cold.
 

In this window box, I planted purple and white osteospermum (daisies), mixed pansies and (my favorite from last summer), snow princess alyssum.  The overall effect is cheerful and a bit different from the usual spring arrangements of tulips and hyacinths. Another bonus is that everything in this widow box can be pulled out and reused for the summer, so I'm not wasting plants or money.

This pot has yellow ranunculus, mixed pansies and again, snow princess alyssum.   I loved the combination and overall effect of color and texture.  The only bummer about this arrangement is that the ranunculus aren't terribly hardy, so they have to be under cover if the temperatures get near freezing; which is why I put them in a pot rather than the window box. 

This may be hard to see, but if you put your face really close to your computer screen, you'll see that mixed in with this gorgeous old can of pussy willow are artificial pussy willow lights.  They were a bit pristine and white when I bought them, so I dirtied them up to make them blend.  I thought it added a bit of warmth and whimsy to the arrangement.



So there you have it.  Today it's cold and rainy, tomorrow its supposed to thunderstorm, and then I believe we will actually get a respite for a day!  My girls have spring break this week, so it would be nice to have at least one day of sun and warmth.

Happy gardening!

An Autumn Retrospective Part Deux

Today I want to highlight a few things I did outside.  I wanted to give the entrance to this property some interest and fun so I put together three huge corn stalk bundles.  To keep them sturdy, I hammered a 2x4 into the ground and tied the stalks to it layer by layer until I got to the final layer when I cinched them together with twine at the top, pulled some of the corn out and worked to make the tops pretty.  At the bottom, I put dozens of tiny pumpkins.  Though it was a pain to mow around, I think it was worth the effort.
















There are stone fence posts (or pillars) at the actual entrance of this property.  Again, I've been itching to do something with them, so this fall I draped them with grapevine and tons of bittersweet.  (The picture doesn't do it justice - a cell phone is only so good, ya know.  And I'm just too lazy to figure out the new camera.)  I placed the bittersweet before the berries popped, so the vines were still green and super pliable.  The grapevine was soaked over night in water to make it the same.  At the base, I placed the largest pumpkin I could find.  (I'm not actually sure its considered a pumpkin, but I'll call it that for now.)

  

 The summer window boxes were tired and needed to be refreshed, so I pulled out all the flowers and replaced them with ornamental cabbages, peppers, small mums and bittersweet.  I loved the combination!  To add a little whimsy, I put artificial twigs in the back.  What is special about these twigs is that they are covered with mini lights.  Because they're battery powered, I was able to stick the entire thing in the window box.  In the soft autumn evenings, these lights gave a bit of romance to the setting.

An Autumn Retrospective

It's spring.  We're still freezing here in PA, but it is spring. Right now, I'm cutting things back, getting the lavender ready and pruning the roses.  I'll write more about that in another blog.  In the meantime, I wanted to show a few pictures of fall and winter (since I ditched the blog and all).  So.  Read on and stay tuned over the next several days.

In all things creative, it's easy to get into a rut.  I find myself battling this in my gardening and decorating regularly.  Those are the times I hit Barnes and Noble (such a punishment) and Google images.  I almost always find something to inspire me.  Now and then you just need to grease the wheel, ya know?  I hope these images will help you think outside the box an bit.  I had a ton of fun doing it, and so will you.

I'll start with the barn.  I have been drooling over this barn for a year.  My client renovated it to be used for entertainment and it is bursting with possibilities.  For the fall, I decided to make the new fireplace the focal point of the room, so I went all out with color.  I dug around her basement (and my garage), and was able to find boxes, an old shutter, some banged up wooden candle sticks and a few other things to give it some interest.  Then I twisted some grapevine and bittersweet vine around it all and added some mums and corn.   For a little added fun, I made a topiary out of pumpkins and squash. 

 
  
This picture was taken a little later in the fall after a project made it necessary for me to redo the mantle.  In the green bucket, I have the fall remains of black-eyed susans.  I love the way they look. 

Around the rest of the barn, I decided to be as muted as possible, so I purchased tons of small white squash and white pumpkins.  The challenge was trying to get all of them to be similar in size and shape.   Then I put them in every spot I could . 

Along with the white, I hung up some of the hydrangea, grass plumes, and lavender from the property to dry.  It gave the entire space fragrance and a quiet, peaceful feeling.

While you may not have a beautiful barn to decorate, there are many spaces around your home that can use some of these touches .

Confessions of a Blogger Slacker

This is my public apology for being possibly the worst blogger ever.  September came around and threw Field Hockey and school at me and left with my life!  By October I was drowning in car pools, high school drama, jr. high angst and gardens.  So when November brought it's own set of issues,  I had given up on this blog.  Sometimes life is just that overwhelming.  But now I'm back and glad to be here.  I hope my few straggling readers will give me a second chance.

SO The Cottage Gardener's first official  blog of 2011 will be about ...my dog, Bentley. 

"My little dog -- a heartbeat at my feet." ~ Edith Wharton

 I've never been much of a dog person; they drool, smell bad, sniff in embarrassing spots and can't take care of themselves.  But this little Sheltie came into our lives and completely stole my heart.  As soon as he was big enough, Bentley accompanied me everywhere: job sites, garden centers all over New Jersey and Pennsylvania (all my suppliers knew him), my kid's games, errands, practices, visiting friends - you name it.

                                   I became one of those crazy dog people. And I was crazy about Bentley!

As delightful as gardening is, it can get a bit lonely at times.  I work primarily by myself and get a little bored with my own company.  Bentley was a fabulous companion right from the beginning; he followed my every step, did dumb dog things to make me laugh, and gave me someone to talk to so it didn't look like I was actually talking to myself (which of course, I wasn't)  He was a great work dog, and next to Patrick Itterly, the most tireless employee I ever had.

After a long day of work, Bentley would generally crash almost as soon as his little body settled into the passenger seat of my car - it would break my heart.  Sweet puppy.

Last week, this beautiful dog was hit by a car in front of my house.  He died quickly but thankfully not before I had the chance to pet him, kiss his sweet snout and tell him what a wonderful, wonderful blessing he had been to me and my family. 

The loss is immeasurable and the pain piecing; I was completely unprepared for the grief and sorrow we are all experiencing at Bentley's death.  Gardening has been work, not a joy and I find myself looking for him countless times during the day.  Ah...dang!  I've made myself cry again, I need to wrap this up.

Bentley, you were a good dog, a good friend, a silly stinker, a faithful companion and a constant source of torture to Sugar, the cat.  We will never forget you and I will probably never stop looking down to see you at my feet.