July 19th and 20th, 2013
from the program: Cottage gardens wrap around this 1896 home in a succession of outdoor rooms, each filled with breath-taking color and whimsical garden art. Flowers and feeders provide a sanctuary for birds, which you will surely hear as you meander on the brick path. The welcoming deck is a haven for friends and family. This exquisite garden will be a great inspiration to those who garden in small spaces.
The garden tour was on the 20th, but I have included some photos from the 19th when we did our last check up on this garden, one we have been working on, with owners Jo and Bob, for 19 years. I knew it would be crowded with people on tour day so wanted to get some clear photos of the garden from one end to the other the day before.
This photo, taken by a friend on tour day, shows the driveway approach to the home. You might not guess what a lavish garden lies beyond the gate.
Just inside, along the wall of the garage (which has been turned into a garden shed on one side and a darling guest cottage on the other) are containers and windowboxes featuring plants from The Basket Case Greenhouse.
The annual geraniums, alternating pink and red, thrive even though one side is at the base of a north wall.
For the windowboxes, Jo buys flats of assorted annuals from the Basket Case and then I figure out an arrangement with what she brings home. Every year we do her ground level arrangement of pink and red geraniums with alyssum so the window boxes echo that pattern.
At the northwest corner of the guest cottage (formerly a garage), you get the first good look at the 1896 house.
Meanwhile, on the other (north) side of the geranium walk, raised up with a railway sleeper wall (railroad ties to non-anglophiles) is a bed of mixed colourful perennials and annuals. Inspired by visiting my garden last summer, Jo had us tear out some shrubs and some dull perennials (big yellow daylily, for example) and plant thickly with our favourite plants, especially the ones she had pointed at as we walked through my garden.
Above: I see Salvia viridis (painted sage), Nicotiana langsdorfii (chartreuse flowering tobacco), snapdragons, salpiglossis, Eryngiums, Cosmos, Agastache, backed with Lavatera ‘Barnsley’. The rugosa rose at the right is so fragrant that it was allowed to stay during the re-do.
Back to the northwest corner of the guest house: If you look south, you will see a shade bed planted against the house deck.
Above, shade bed would be to your left and the guest cottage window to your right.
Fat little birds like to sit on the rail above that bench. A friend told me the birds were there even on tour day.
A wooden arch and metal gate lead into a narrow path in the new mixed border.
Inside the arch, people could walk one by one on a narrow brick path through the newly planted colour beds. Jo calls it a “one butt path”.
North of the honeysuckle arch on a small patio at the north side of the deck is a water feature with a tipping bucket.
Jo and Bob have a wonderfully arranged deck, sheltered from south and west winds and with a roofed nook by the back door.
Just west of the tipping bucket water feature, we walk through another wooden arch into the center patio.
Above, the guest house is marked by the hanging basket, and the tipping bucket water feature would be to your right if you walked back through the wooden gate. You can see the metal gate to the left, and the plant bench below the rail where the chubby birds like to sit.
Here is the center courtyard, on the north side of the house, looking west. Next year, Jo wants to remove the old rhododendrons and make a new, no doubt colourful, shade garden on the north wall.
When we first started working in this garden in about 1995, all that was here was a line of rhododendrons running along the fence and a straight gravel path down the middle.
Jo demands that every plant provide lots of colour; if it is not colourful enough, she says a plant “doesn’t have enough bang for the buck”.
This garden view was one of my main inspirations to move from my old shady garden to a sunny one in 2010!
The west gate opens onto a big lawn that is also part of the property. When Jo said she wanted part of her garden to look just like mine with all her favourite plants that she saw when mine was on tour last year, I never thought to say we could make a garden exactly like mine by doing great big beds out in this lawn! We are contemplating the idea, I’m not sure how seriously on Jo’s part!
Let’s turn around and walk back to the center courtyard, admiring the plantings from a different angle.
The house had a west and north facing wrap around porch that has been enclosed into a wonderful L shaped sitting room.
Years ago, my former partner Robert Sullivan laid this path for Jo and Bob. Originally, the beds were straight and edged with railroad ties and the whole impression was not soft and flowing like this.
It was an enormous pleasure to help Jo and Bob get this garden ready for the tour. For more history of their garden, just put “Jo’s garden” into the search box on this blog!
From the photos and your descriptions, I sense your “intimacy” with this space. Your knowledge of and pleasure in it is perfectly matched by the amazing and prolific color of the plants. You all certainly got a lot of Bang for your Buck!
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What a beautiful, colorful garden! Thanks for taking us along on the tour. This time of year I am ready for a color other than green.
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What a lot of colour and a little fat bird too. Very delightful.
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One of my favourites to work in.
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Beautiful. Just Beautiful! Love it.
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beautiful garden! tom trudell is rocking it!
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Skyler, it is just beautiful!! I am bessed to be able to go and quilt and look out over all this spetacular colorful garden. Today I am trying to plant my potato vine plant you sent me….but, I lost the only key to my locked shed…
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You are going to have to plant the cuttings in a cereal bowl with a kitchen spoon…Oh, but I bet the potting soil is in the locked shed! I hope the cuttings take…
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[…] We reminisced for a little while; he said, “Your garden was industrial strength colour therapy! Vietnam vets with PTSD should go there to heal.” He would have loved Jo’s garden! […]
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Wow, I see some great pictures for puzzles !!!!! That is such a show piece and breath taking shots.
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[…] was Jo’s garden, always a big favourite on a garden tour. Ann had seen it before but agreed that it was even better this […]
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[…] The beautiful wall vase was made by my friend Sheila, who brought it to me when she came from Oregon for the Music in the Gardens tour. […]
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[…] it an absolutely brilliant idea. Why not have the edible tour be on the Sunday after the Saturday Music in the Gardens tour? It could be advertised as “Garden Tour Weekend at the Beach.” Hotels could […]
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[…] Next, Jo’s garden, where we have been working once a week to keep it up to the perfection it enjoyed on garden tour day. […]
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[…] here’s one of my choice. Water Music Festival is this weekend and is the event for which Music in the Gardens tour is a fundraiser. Both benefit music programs in the schools. We hear the Saturday evening […]
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