I'm more of a grower than a designer. I plant what I like where I have room. Always. And as long as I still love it, I'll keep doing it this way.

I like your style Tracey

What mags said. That's me too. I think this is a common style with gardeners who are also collectors of certain plants. I like design too but just don't have room for it. There would have to be plants that I may like but don't collect to make it work and then they take up precious real estate.

I get my design "fix" in the summer when I go on the Master Gardeners Garden Tour. So you see, it's not that I don't like design, I appreciate it in other people's gardens.

Maybe garden design is more prevalent for people that just like perfect pretty gardens, not so much the collector or backyard hybrizer. I don't randomly pop a bulb into the ground anywhere though. Like a "joy" line of lilies in the back behind some OTs. But at the same time I do not have neat rows either since Iwant it to still be aesthetically pleasing to the eye.....well at least my eye anyways..and I suppose my wife's eyes too since she has to look at them as well.

Admittedly I do garden tours and have a little bit of brief envy for the designs of others. My daughter may have been the first person to tell me all the lilies I wouldn't have room for if I gardened like this.

You have a smart daughter, mags!

Yikes! I just remembered my yard is on a garden tour next April with the Kevin Vaughn Hybridizing Clinic attendees being the visitors. They won't be looking at lilies though, but how I garden in a drought tolerant way. Guess I need to get busy out there!

I like a wide variety of plants. I tend to purchase things I like and find a place to plant them. Lilies, phlox, hostas and dahlias are the majority holders in my gardens.I fancy it as a "cottage garden", but it is not very organized.

I think it's nice and interesting to read everyone's thoughts about this as it tells a story not only of the garden but of the gardener. I do recognize myself a little in most of the comments so far.

I have gardens that I have for beauty, but it's not only about the beauty, it's also about the plant, about its individual beauty, about what it likes and also ultimately about my own desire to grow it. I have a lot of lilies planted in the kitchen garden in neat rows, which I think is suitable there. These are for cutting, propagation, evaluation and sometimes just a place for a lily to rest until I find a suitable place for it. Which as you all understand, just is another way of saying that I buy lilies that I don't really know where to plant. In the other gardens straight lines aren't welcome and it gets wilder and wilder the further away from the house it gets. I enjoy both the "kitchen garden" lilies and the ornamental garden lilies very much, although for a visitor and non lily enthusiast, I'm sure the ornamental gardens would be much preferred!

As for color coordination, my taste changes constantly. However, anything goes as every combination ultimately has its own beauty. Gardening isn't about fashion to me. Some combinations that was once considered ugly are now beautiful and vice versa. How can that be? The colors themselves didn't change...

In truth I like any garden look that displays the gardeners love for plants, but I can't enjoy it as much when gardening merely becomes a hunt for plastic perfection that looks the same all season long. That isn't for me. Gardens need to change over the season. Sometimes imperfection just is the forerunner for something fantastic, so there needs to be a little space for yellow leaves and the wilting of lily stems in the autumn too. Somehow there is always beauty.

A long time ago one of my aunts (she is too old to do much traveling now) visited our garden and she loved to walk through it and take photographs of it. However she said that she wished her friend, that was good at painting, could have been there to paint it as it was hard to make it justice with photos. I think this often is true as a photo can show every little imperfection, weed or faded flower, yet can be very bad at showing all the love that goes into that garden. However I hope and think that the following pictures at least gives an idea of my gardening style and that they are "filtered" through the photographic lens in such a way that they give a good impression of how the garden feels like for me.


My "secret" Martagon garden. First bloom 2016. This wasn't perfect in any way, but it was perfect to me and a new garden adventure. Beautiful weeds in the background and they are allowed to grow there. I cut them down once in a while


I will mix almost anything. From 2015. All the rain made everything lush, so more "picture perfect" than usual. Pre-weeded before taking the image


A garden is always changing. From 2008. This is the same bed as the one in front in the above picture from a different angle. No lilies here at this time. But now they are "everywhere".