Those agapanthus are beautiful! I started some from seed several years ago. This zone is too cold for them, but I mulched them well and they returned for several years and even bloomed a few times. Had a really cold winter a couple of years ago that took them out, but I've been considering trying one as a container plant that I can overwinter indoors.

Both dogs look happy.

And now I see the Cologyne in its more complete context!! Do some of the flower boxes/ terraces ( eventually) continue into the house? This tropical Orchid would love it. Just switch out the soil for some bark. This one does not need full sun to bloom, those leaves do like some protection from noon time sun.
What a job you two did!! I just stumbled onto this thread.

Lee-Roy, I think all of us have miscalculated on the size of plants. Also, they often do not conform to the size stated on the plant tags or published information. I used to ask my plants to grow, and now find I am asking them to stop -- most of my garden beds are becoming quite overgrown and I am starting to remove plants. Gardening is always a process. That being said, your garden is lush and lovely and you have done a wonderful job.

Hello my beloved readers (if you're still following ofcourse with my erratic posts :S )

An update once again:

My Cyp is visibly gliding into dormancy, it's harder to see nowadays with all the Carex overgrowing it


Although not very abundant this year after planting, I still enjoyed the few raspberries I could harvest ^^



My citrus sapling is slowly but steadily growing into a big specimen. I never thought they'd respond so vigorously to pruning. Although I'm happy with the general shape, one side is visibly more lush than the other, so I'll need to work on that.



Big surprise: I tossed all my lavenders. I didn't like them anymore (the flower stalks got too long and flopped all over) ;even last year, but didn't get around it back then; until after they finished flowering this year, which I let them for the bees.
I replaced them with some grasses and bought three new additions: Gaura lindheimeri. Quite feminine flowes, but I think my garden is in need of that




The new bed I dug earlier this year to accomodate most of my calla lilies (and the raspberries ofc) got an expansion thanks to my lovely significant other who willingly let me haha ^^ I received the full length and some width. I dug it over as deep as I could muster, forked in several bags of well rotted horse manure, added on top of that several more bags of fresh horse manure and all kinds of waste and covered it with a tarp.
Now all I have to do is wait and let nature nurture my bad soil into healthy living soil, ideal for planting next year.





As you can see my Hymenocallis seedlings are doing excellent. I think I've got a 100% germination and leaf growth, though I'm not sure 'cause I never counted them.
The parent plants however are not so much. They flowerd again for me this year, though I couldn't really enjoy them 'cause of terribly rainy weather and most withered before I could smell them. Seed production was also a total dud so....Slugs were a real problem this spring (total invasion!) and got to them. The leaves looked ragged and horrible. And then the red blotch. I topped them all over to check on 'm and what I thought: the necks were red as blood. So with pain in my heart I tossed the lot. Some of the to the eye visibly clean offsets I've kept and put in a bag with some sand to develop. If they turn out to be infected I'll toss those too. The end of a very short era *sigh* Hope my seedlings remain unharmed. If not I'll have to refrain from growing bulbs from the same family for several years



I dug out all of my bunchberries from the lowest raised bed (to accomodate the new building), divided them and potted them up. They weren't very happy there either. Fingers crossed the divisions start growing and increase my stock 'cause I love these beauties!



The hostas on the other hand have loved the combination of warm and wet! These were 6 small divisions I bought at a yard sale earlier this year and they're romping away! They've more than quadrupled in size! Big smile here




The Rumex sanguineum which were infested with some sort of rust had been cut back as advised and have answered with a vengeance as you can see ^^



Hopefully the Geranium nodosum - which all began to look a bit tacky - will do so too



My Asplenium scolopendrium are doing great in their pots after I lifted those. Vine weevils came out at night to munch on their foliage this spring. I squished them all over several evenings I hope. They'll stay in there until I can accommodate them a new home.



And last, but certainly not least, the cherry on the cake of this post I've got some very special new additions. I received them only yesterday: more hardy orchids!
I couldn't resist buying them after I ordered my Cyp and Epipactis last year from the same grower. Once you go orchid, you never go back. They are: Plantathera bifolia (3), Dactylorhiza maculata (1) and D. fuchsii (1). They're all in summer dormancy at the moment so I'm afraid I only have pics from the internet.

They're severely threatened in my country due to habitat loss, so they'll make great additions to my garden and perhaps the surrounding ecology/grasslands.





Google pics: first two are of P. bifolia






Enjoy the weekend y'all!

Wow! Your little paradisise garden is looking GREAT!!!! Part of it look so lush and happy! (Most of them.)

The nice thing about trying different plants .... if they don't work out, you can just replace them with something else ...

Lee-Roy, just discovered the thread, you and your partner have done an incredible job! Thanks for the updates!

Autumn has officially arrived people! We're having some unusually summerlike weather with plenty of sunshine and warmth; although the nights are typically chilly already. It's coming to an end though 'cuz the first rainy days are forecasted to begin coming week. Yesterday/today was the autumn equinox (an equal amount of day and night) and now we're steadily slipping into the darker months ahead.



So this update is a tribute to autumn and the autumn equinox

One of my three Salvias has responed very nicely to its summer pruning with a few flower spikes. Love it ^^


Of the several climbing hydrangea cuttings I took earlier this summer, one has taken root and has been potted up since a few weeks. It's definately rooting strong in its container at the moment. I'll post a picture some time later.


The calla lilies near the Trachycarpus are doing excellent! But I haven't had any blooms this year on none of them, not even the ones in full sun. I'm at 11 or 12 specimens now. Hope if I leave them in ground over winter they'll forgive me for digging them up and reward me once again. Don't mind the goofy face.


Two of the three smaller raised beds have been thoroughly dug over and amended with more sharp sand and gravel. I've ordered several botanical tulip bulbs online aswell as an Eremurus himalaicus which hate wet soil. It's only one foxtail lily at the moment; just to see whether I can grow it or not. ^^


The tulips (bulbs have not arrived yet)


The Eremurus (and some Camassia leichtlinii 'Alba')



I've deceided to move the one calla lily in the front larger raised bed to the new long border higher up. It was outgrowing the space (and didn't flower) so it looked kinda weird. But man that f******* was hard to dig out Nearly broke my spade trying to heave it out.
I put it in the back amongst the larger Pennisetum (which I also dug out - yet again, for the second time this year - for they were also outgrowing their place, smotheringe everything else around it and obscuring visibility). As expected I had to cut nearly all leaves the next day 'cuz it was drooping all over the place. Hope it'll recover in time before temps get too low.



Shipping of 13 new Iris varieties I thought I'd try out.

Iris ensata: 'Amethyst', 'Diamant' & 'Sensation'
Iris sibirica: 'Annick', 'Blue Moon', 'Caesar's Brother', 'Dancing Shadows', 'Demure Illini', 'Elfe', 'Jelle', 'Pansy Purple', 'Steve V(W?)arner', 'Tamberg'






The Woodland Bed as I've come to call it is doing excellent. With the foxtail lily and Camassias also came a package of Allium ursinum bulbs which I planted in and amongst the hostas and bugleweed. This brings the total number of species in this small bed to 10. Tell me if you think this is too much or not.


This concludes this update. Enjoy and as always feedback is welcome

Lee-Roy,

It looks terrific!

Lee-Roy - I don't know what you are feeding those plants, but they are healthier than any I have ever seen locally. I can not believe the size and growth on them! Impressive is an understatement. It is amazing to me that your garden had taken off in such a short amount of time and is doing so incredibly well. I am jealous.

As far as blooming, have you tried some fertilizer like a 15-30-15? Or maybe they just need a year to settle in and will bloom like crazy next year?

I don't feed my plants directly Becky, except with fermented weeds (nettle/comfrey) if I can get them. Other than that I feed the soil with compost, leaves, mulches or dump kitchen waste amongst them like banana peels when I'm too lazy to walk all the way to the compost heap.

Everything looks great Lee Roy! I think your woodland bed will accommodate the alliums with no problem- alliums take up little space and the foliage goes dormant quickly after flowering.

I have a clump of Callas (Z. aethiopica) that have been in the ground for nearly 10 years and have never bloomed. This is the 2nd location I've had them, and I've tried extra compost and high phosphorus fertilizer.

Way to go on being a true organic gardener!!!!

Hello again everyone. Even though the gardening season is as good as over and we're all retreating mostly inside for the coming months, I've been pondering: would you guys like a weekly update, however small, or just want me to continue with my erratic, yet larger updates about every month?

Aaaaaand there's been a change of plans....looks like I'll be moving to a new home. Well nothing's decided yet, but me and the bf have our eyes on a patch of land not far from here. Plan is to sell the house, buy the patch of ground (12acres) and build ourselves a new home.
Ofcourse my mind's always more on the garden itself than the house (to much annoyance of my SO). It's 12m wide and 106m long, north east oriented if I'm correct and looks out on some farmers fields.
It's not small (heck it's 7x bigger than what I've got now; also wider), but it's not really wide/big enough lol , so my worries are that I won't be able to cram everything I and my SO want from a garden. Well perhaps I could, but it'd all be laid out in a long strand as it were instead of nicely divided and spaced out to either sides.
Anyway, I'll keep you all posted if anything hapens. Happy gardening!

Wow, I just found your thread and have read it straight through from the beginning. I've shown my husband all of your photos, too. (We have places for raised beds like yours!) I am beyond impressed by what you and your partner have been able to do in relatively such a short time.
Moving and leaving it all will be hard, but then you get to plan and create a whole new home and garden with more privacy and space. We've had many different homes over the years, and I always hate to leave them, but we learn new things each time we move and start over.
Wherever the 2 of you end up, I know you'll have a beautiful place and an especially lovely garden full of flowers! Bravo!

12 acres sounds like a nice sized piece of land! Whatever you decide to do, I hope it works out very well for you. Keep us posted!

Well we went to take a closer look at the patch. It's really overgrown with weeds, bushes and trees so we only managed to go around the perimeter. It'll take alot of work to just get it cleared...And from the looks of it the soil is sandy/loamy, so quite different from the heavy clay I have now.
Good news: I can safely grow many of the bulbs and free drainage loving plants I love. Less good news: it'll take alot of work and amendement to get the moisture loving plants to thrive.
Third photo is a look at the farm field at the back from another patch for sale.







As for garden design, I've already come up with a sketch of what it possibly could be, althought I might have to adjust it since the real length is 10m shorter than what they said online.

Dark grey block to the left is the house (max size in regard to the garden), smaller dark grey is a (potting/propagation)shed, green areas are lawn (my SO wanted one so badly to play with the dog, but I added another one closer to the house and deck for relaxing), yellow area is a low growing wildflower meadow (I want to do something for wildlife...), the larger light blue in the back is also a 'meadow', but more contemporary with middle high grasses, a few deciduous trees (circles) and interplanted with Camassia, Iris sibirica and Dactylorhiza..., light grey are paths and rest is free space to plant. Boundaries preferably a (evergreen) hedge with espaliers here and there, but not at the back (or maybe 2 foot at most) to keep it open to the landscape and embrace that wide view.




As for another update:

My tulip bulbs have gone in the ground. I said I'd wait until next month, but I got so excited and impatient.





Some of my Hostas are flowering at the moment

Is the home included, or is it 12 acres of the land only? That would be a lot to clear, but heavy equipment could take it all out fairly quickly. I've seen old orchards removed in a day or two.

The house still has to be build yes