Armchair Gardening

Compilation of Past Mini-Posts of 2003

November 2, 2018 by Ilona Erwin

In the bygone days of blogging (yes, we can now talk about the bygone days of blogging), it was normal to have numerous mini-posts comprised of only links or quotes, etc. That is greatly frowned upon by Google today (not yet known in those days when “Altavista” was the search engine we used. )

So this post will collate those ancient posts which I do not simply delete from the blog. Each entry will have a title and the date it originally appeared in the “Journal”. Sometimes we called such things “a blog” rather than the entire site. How time has changed the social medium of blogging!

I am now refurbishing Ilona’s Garden Journal for today’s readers. If you like trivia collections, this post will entertain you.

Autumn Garden Report

Published on: Oct 14, 2003 @ 23:58

Did I mention planting the Iteas? I did. They look great in their decided placement. They are backed by the Viburnum burkwoodii which really looks good. I hope they do well.

Pines are not looking good in Ohio this year, including mine. Losing lots of needles. But I don’t think it is serious for mine, they have some good green growth, too…. so it may be just losses that are either natural or from the drought of last year.

Every year seems strange in some way anymore. I don’t think we have normal, I think normal is something of the mythical past.

It is raining fairly hard today after yesterday’s perfect weather. Very windy.

I cut down many of my perennials-mostly the asters. Some years I leave everything til spring, but I wanted the asters out of the way-they are very messy in winter. Spring is always wet cold work, so the fall is my preferred time to get things out of the way and prepared for spring.

I am trying out a new tulip -‘Lipstick’ or something. I will put in the proper name later. It is a triumph type I hope it matches up with the Apeldoorn’s …if not, I will have to seperate them with some gray or white things. Taking chances this year.

Musings from an Untimely Bloom

My crabapple trees are blooming. And I have seen this in the general area which inspired these thoughts:

The Coming of Winter

Published on: Oct 16, 2003 @ 17:16

Some things come to their winter. They come to the time to put them to their proper end -cover them over and look beyond.

The crabapples should flower in springtime, but they are blooming in Autumn.

=====

Winter is not a time of blooming and we are surprised when we see flowers then. As though we had forgotten it was possible, this out-of-time-sequence. Thinking that what is customary is somehow eternal.

The mind becomes steeled for the barren and the frozen, and bloom out of it’s time disturbs that, it softens us in our memories and transports us to a delight of another season.

Quickly it passes and the turn of mind is again toward the elemental matters of a warm fire, a shining light, and a hot drink. The blooms are garnered to their proper station of time, again.

Not everyone’s seasons are the same, but there is always some sort of marking of time and tasks.

I have always liked the Northern seasons, Maybe it is the clarity of differentiation in the types of beauty and the comforts of each one in turn. Their severity of cold or heat is not the attraction. Not for me any more, anyway.

======

I am already thinking of winter. The unseasonal blooming of the crabapple trees was unsettling. This year it has been as though I wanted to become a chrysalis and then somehow miraculously emerge next year as something wonderful and beautiful and able to fly.

Brisk Autumn Day

Published on: Oct 16, 2003 @ 22:41

It was a brisk day today, with a storm brewing on the West. I passed a farm with a horse that was galloping full run into the breezy gusts, tail up and rippling muscle. It seemed to speak the essence of autumn, the feeling of invigorating chill and yet warmth of sun and clear air. I felt I knew what the horse was feeling, just for a few brief seconds.

It reminds me of our day-trip to visit my mother this past week. We drove up through Ohio to the north, it was a beautiful warm and clear fall day. Leaving very early in the morning, the mists were rising from ponds of water and wisping about the fields. The morning sun sparkled on the grassy pastures with either frost or dew. I couldn’t tell which, in its white webby blankets.

The leaves have just been turning with fits of red among the yellow and greens. I made a little word picture in my mind of the smoking mists from the waters igniting the flames of the autumn trees. It entertained me quite a bit as I took in the scenes that are all too fleeting in their season.

Art and Beauty Musing

Published on: Nov 9, 2003 @ 22:32

Photography of John Beale is a thing of joy.

There is nothing I like better than for someone to have an eye for beauty and the talent to tender that into something I can enjoy. I think this is true for most us, right? This is what makes much of art: being able to transfer the message of something to another’s senses.

He mainly has articles for those who like to do the picture taking, which judging from the results should make helpful reading.

Updated to add: Like many older sites, John’s is no longer online. His writing is available on the Internet webarchive, but most of the pictures are not.

=======

I always wanted to make good web pictures of my garden moments, and I am actually thinking of trying to learn to manage a camera. Right now, the nuances of fine photography seem mysterious to me. But all mediums simply need to be worked with, we can’t all be masters, but just attempting something gives us satisfaction and a greater appreciation for those who are masters of their medium ( or media, is this a pun? I’m not sure).

That is how I feel about gardening. An artful, masterful garden is not something all of us will make. I know I gave up that dream a while ago, but something that gives expression to the personal vision we have is do-able. Very do-able.

So we look at others art, and others gardens, and we get inspirations and enjoyment, we understand something that we otherwise might not, and we make our own expressions and the world is richer for it.

If you would ask me at the moment, I think this is the grand purpose of all of art: enrichment.

It takes what is there and creates the moment for someone else. I am sure this is too simplistic, but there is so much beauty to experience, and so many different visions of what that is, I think there is opportunity for everyone to create and enjoy another’s creating, and that this is part of what gives our lives meaning.

Customary November Weather

Published on: Nov 14, 2003 @ 19:49

The winds blew and blustered yesterday, but today is calm. Very cold, though. Not exactly winter cold yet… but starting to feel that way.

The days have had that clear yellow shaft of sunlight against gray lead skies that are customary for November. And the lawns are still green and LOOK SO WONDERFUL with the leaves all vacuumed , mulched, and stored in my vegetable garden. Today is a plain pale gray day.

I scanned in my photos, They are pathetic. Can’t even improve them. I think I will ask for a digital camera for Christmas.

I need something that shows my mistakes while I am taking the pictures.

Peace in the Garden

Published on: Nov 17, 2003 @ 05:49

I accidentally put a rant in here, but it is all deleted now.

Sometimes I feel I handle disappointments better if I can garden. It doesn’t have to be actual gardening, it can be anything outside that is quality and quantity of time in soaking up the observations and experiences of God’s good earth.

I believe we have done a great disservice in paving over and engineering so much of our world. We have more need of trees and of wide spaces in the cultivating of man’s spirit than we have realized.

There is calming and anchored sensibleness in the realities of nature that we desperately need.
It isn’t the answer to everything, I am not saying that, but is one part of sanity, it is a seed bed of balanced thinking and inspirational creating. Something is built within the earth, the wind, and the sky, and it speaks to us… the Bible says it tells of God’s glory. Maybe that is the comfort and the awe that we absorb when we are enclosed by something other than manufactured walls.

But even as I say this I know that nature is not all benign, that the walls are our security against real challenges of an uncontrolled and uncontrollable natural world. It is the balance, the interplay of what is there and what we are able to do with it that gives sense to us as we go about our practical lives.

I just think we need more of the “what is there” to look at and walk around in. I am sure there is a wonderful poem that would express it well, but I am going to bed now…..

First Snow Flurries

Published on: Nov 25, 2003 @ 14:38

The pleasant weather has come to an end. We had our first snow flurries yesterday. I finished the mowing on Saturday, which was a beautiful day, just slightly chilly.

The cotoneaster is filled with its burgandy berries, the stellata magnolia has buds that almost look like pussy willow buds, and the pyracantha is holding up well with exceptional amounts of orange berries this year.

I am not sure how they escaped the brown wizening they often get. I haven’t had the time to observe much, but no new birds have shown up. I think I ought to borrow my kid’s binoculars and identify some of the little birds that flit around.

I don’t know when the robins left, but both they and the swallows are now gone for the winter. we didn’t have the huge flocks of starlings that usually invade in the fall. Not that I am complaining.

I wish baking blackbirds in a pie were once more the fashion 😉

I need to buy some mulch now. December is a good time to put it on the roses and renew around the dooryard gardens. Neatens up things for winter, and protects from the harsh winds that are coming.

The winds here can be brutal.

But today is very quiet, and all seems to be restful. The husband and helpers put up the Christmas lights on Saturday, as well. We are on schedule for the holidays.

Thoughts from the Deep Freezer

January 9, 2017 by Ilona Erwin

It is a normal weather pattern for central Ohio to plumb the depths of single digit temperatures with little or no snow. It is equally expected for gardeners to go into planning mode during the deep freeze of January.

Reviewing the last year has made me realize that I’m more prone than ever to the unknown vagaries to mess up my well laid plans. It is enough to tempt me to have no plan at all, but to be ready for whatever capricious direction my weather takes me.

2016 Examples

The summer was so hot I could not even go outside for a period of time: no weeding, chores, or even cleaning up outside the air conditioned environs of a couple rooms.

On the other hand, the autumn was truly a gardener’s gift, with pleasant temperatures and clear skies which allowed for a bevy of those undone projects of summer to come to completion. Not all surprises are unpleasant ones.

Vacation Plans and Gardening

Another snafu (which I am not complaining about, simply stating) is how traveling can interfere with progress in the garden. Depending on the time, the weeds won’t wait, and attending new plantings may create a conflict. Should I order new plants knowing that I may not be able to properly care for them?

The best way to proceed seems to be lots of plan A, plan B, and Plan C scenarios.
Mindfully following lessons I have learned from a lifetime of gardening: get as much done as early as possible.
Look for late winter/early spring opportunities of preparing the ground, getting tools ready, and setting up the yard for summer enjoyment.

It may be too early to plant or pull out the patio furniture, but clearing last years growth, tilling when possible, winter sowing, even edging can be done. Pruning is a usual activity for that time of year.

On a Sad Note

Winter’s thrall is not only for hopeful planning, but to assess the past. My beautiful Bantam rooster met his demise as fall turned to winter last year. During broad daylight hours he became a meal for a predator who made off with his head. The hens were out in the yard, but he apparently was guarding the coop.

It is very sad because we loved his beauty and personality. He was the companion of our Banty hen, the pair of whom my husband liked to call “George and Martha”. Poor Martha… he had saved her from a Hawk early in the spring, but now his heroic days are done.

Speaking of the chickens, they are no longer laying with regularity. We have kept them cooped up since George’s demise, and they will be reaching their two year mark this spring; two possible reasons for their egg laying hiatus.

Back to Garden Planning

reseda odorata — Reseda is not a showy flower, but sweetly fragrant. I like to sow it in my containers.

Where was I? To order or not to order?

I have decided that I will order some seeds that I have had a notoriously difficult time finding in the past. I received a ‘Select Seeds’ catalog and several things that I want in this years garden are available there… one being Mignonette.
I will purchase a few trees this spring. Small ones.
I will need builders sand for some projects…. must remind husband, well before.
Since I ordered seeds, it makes sense to start some of my own plants indoors.
Considering whether to buy a replacement rooster.

I am trying very hard to keep my plans small, simple, do-able. Becoming overly ambitious and complicated is my Achilles heel. That lesson was relived over the holidays.

The Simple Life

We don’t really need to be entangled in the grandiose and complex. I don’t want to romanticize a simpler life, and I don’t mean the usual way it is understood. Old fashioned is not necessarily simpler, neither is homesteading or growing one’s own food. All that matters is what streamlines our lives in accordance with our own resources and means.

I think what I mean by a simpler life is one that is balanced, lived in moderation, lived well.

My plans will be influenced by that aim in 2017. Do you have plans, ambitious or otherwise? Have you ordered plants and seeds? I noticed that some selections are already being “sold out” for the season.

Lessons from this Post

Chores can be done during winter thaws
Simplify garden plans, take vacation absence into account
Order plants and seeds now, for best selection
Plan to enjoy life, as well as work

Time In A Garden, Using Garden Blogs, And Museum Quality

July 22, 2016 by Ilona Erwin

I could use more time enjoying my garden, and I have an inkling that is true for most of us that love a garden. Modern life has a way of pushing in with what seems like a long list of urgent, yet trivial, demands that eat up the day… and sometimes grab part of the night.

My use of garden blogs has changed from leisure entertainment of surfing and getting to know individual bloggers to sorting through an inundation of clamor: “READ ME!”. I often add to the clamor, and it seems unavoidable.

And so, what do I wish to find and what do I wish to add that will gain me more time well used, reading and otherwise enjoying -rather than rushing to get done- in the garden?

The Museum Visit

Part of it is rather like my visit to a museum.

When I go to museums, and here let me say it is one of my favorite things to do, I do not want -nor expect- to see everything there is on a topic. I don’t even want to see everything there is in the Museum’s collection. I wish to see an exhibition that brings meaning and greater appreciation of the objects at hand.

The word for that is “curation”; collecting and exhibiting what has greatest value for some reason. Sometimes it is representative, sometimes “best of”… sometimes just curiosities.

Curating Information

If you blog, immediately you think of a major service that blogs can serve: curating information and delivering an idea of quality in a topic that interests a reader.

In any topic, gardening included, there are areas of the internet that have cornered the high ground on types of curation. Like reviews.

An individual can offer their opinion, but Amazon’s site can offer many opinions and a number of ways to rate a product. If I want more time in my garden, which will I seek out first?

There are two ways to approach time on the internet, including garden blog reading:

Looking at the novel and highly entertaining
Looking at a well done exhibition

Those two things both need to inform me, if my time is to be well spent.

Youtube Eureka Moment

My son recently was writing an essay that hinged upon the idea of a “Eureka Moment”. That is probably what helped inspire this post. This week while looking through a large number of videos on a certain topic, I realized something. Many of them were a waste of my time. A few were gems.

And that Eureka moment, as obvious and perhaps thick as it might seem to some, made me realize that a garden blog can be very useful if it curates, in museum quality manner. It can be more than simply a provider of information on technique or design, or plant cultivation.

In a way it isn’t news, but in another way it helps me focus on what I want, both from a garden blog and to give in mine.

Gardening Isn’t Trendy

Well, maybe it is for you. For me, gardening isn’t like fashion, where my garden looks “dated”. It might, but so what if it gives me joy? It really is no social crime to have garden gnomes dotted about or a pink flamingo… or even a bed of exotic plants rather than natives.

Gardening can make room for a wide range of personal taste.

On the other hand, the internet is about nothing if it isn’t about trends at this point. Who just surfs, anymore? Do people even use that word in connection with their online time, now? Not me. The change in blogs helped to contribute to that, and those new habits changed blogs, in turn. entertainment is usually provided by a lot of writers contributing a lot of stuff to look at… or we go to Facebook.

But what I am finding more useful for garden blogs is the same thing I used to want in a magazine or that I still look for in a book. Knowledgable curation, aesthetic presentation, inspiring focus… and then I want to get on with enjoying my garden.

Should Gardening Be Politicized? A Bit Of An Aside

Speaking of trends…

guerrillagreen — Original by oddsock, Ian Burt

There is room for raising consciousness about gardening issues. We can’t escape that, nor should we. But I have been in the company of political radicals enough to recognize when I find a garden issue zealot. I don’t criticize them, but I am also unready to jump on every bandwagon that goes by. Ilona the Unready, there you go. I have a title.

I am rather a reasoned gardener, and that is what I will promote in my opinion. I believe the earth benefits from that.

Do I Make The Cut By My Own Criteria?

That is what I must judge my blog, website, and social media input by today. I was always suspicious of the adage, “to thine own self be true”, but this is a time when it is à propos.

That doesn’t mean I will stop creating and only curate, but if I find myself needing to curate, I’ll pass on the results to friends of my garden writing.

Recently, I put together pages around one of my favorite plants: Lavender. I have nurtured and cajoled my “Lavender hedge” and even had to totally replace it one year. The resulting pages of Lavender info and reporting on my experience creates posts far flung in time.

I hope that as I gather together guideposts you will enjoy the curations… or at least tolerate if that is not your cup of tea.

Posts in the Spirit “Best Of”

Herb Plant Information On IGJ

Best lavender videos on Youtube

An Inspiring Fairy Garden Video

Examples Of Gorgeous Landscaping

Old Fashioned Gardening

April 15, 2016 by Ilona Erwin

Cottage gardens and English borders are examples of “Old Fashioned Gardening”. Why say that? I think it has to do with the amount of work one is prepared to do, the need for intensive gardening techniques, and the result of an abundant all season show.

It is common in more modern landscapes and lifestyles to have goals of work reduction, ease of maintenance, and simplicity in design. Compare that with the types of garden plans from Gertrude Jekyll’s day.

A Few Vintage Techniques

What might I include in the idea of old fashioned gardening? Well, one technique I hear little of today is “double digging”. When was the last time you were advised to employ this venerable technique when making a garden bed?

I should probably explain… Double digging involve digging two layers deep, and incorporating organic material.

Double Digging Method

Mark out the area of the bed, use a shovel to dig one shovelful deep along a trench. Pile all this dirt to one side. Then another 9-10 inches deep, loosen all the soil in the bottom of the flowerbed. Use a spading fork to mix organic amendments into the bottom layer. Start the next trench, filling the first one with the soil from the second, move along until the entire bed is dug, and all soil is replaced.

How To Double Dig Visuals

The Biennial Show

Another technique from a bygone day is buried with the term “biennial”. The term remains, and many gardeners know that this refers to a plant that takes two growing seasons to complete its growth cycle. But today’s garden rarely needs to utilize the peculiar traits of a biennial plant into their plans.

First let’s look at what happens with biennials:

First season from seed, the plant is putting down roots and growing its leafy structures. The second season involves flowering, going to seed, and dying.

Examples of biennials:

Sweet William Dianthus
Wallflowers
Lunaria
Stocks
Foxgloves

The whole idea of utilizing the unique characteristics of biennials was to provide an “in between” flower show in the natural lull between some of the cycles in perennials. Especially within the spring to summer time right before roses reach their peak, but also in later summer.

Because of breeding advances which bend the natural cycles, there is less of a difference between biennials and annuals for the gardener. Both very often bloom the same season planted from seed.

Still, you can experiment in your own garden to see if certain biennials fill in those seasonal spots where color is needed.

Pruning New Plants

I don’t know if this truly qualifies as an old fashioned gardening tip, or if I just don’t see it advocated as often as I used to…

The idea here was to give a plant, whether tree or vine, usually, a running start in putting down roots that will later benefit the plant’s growth.

We usually buy container plants nowadays, and we look for the largest size or height possible. Then after planting it, we are loathe to lose any of that “superior” growth. But the older advice ( which I think is just as valid today) is to trim down that new plant by a third.

Yep. Lop that extra growth right off.

This is important in perennial vines like Clematis, and in new trees.

Old Fashioned Advice

I don’t always remain mired in the “old ways”, but sometimes experience shows that those techniques and tips gave good results. They might be supported by today’s science on the subject and other times not.

The problem with sorting through such information is that we aren’t always given all the facts. Like the old family tradition story of always cutting off the ends of the ham before baking… once the story was unearthed, it turns out Grandma’s pan was just too small, and it had nothing to do with the outcome of a finely baked ham.

The same way, some of the old ways depend upon specific conditions or climates. How to know if this is useful for you? You can research or experiment. Or you can just take someone’s word for it. Gardening is an art, which employs science.

So often we are treating it the other way, and while I’m not prepared to argue against it, our own common sense might guide us to working in our gardens with an eye to results that best suit us.

I know this is a rather rebellious idea in the scientific age, but there you go. I still add organic matter to the native soil when planting a shrub or a tree. Heck, I even add little handfuls of compost when planting a perennial.

But I also don’t garden as much as I used to, and my place is no longer my own little showcase. I have reverted to the idea that it is for my own pleasure and must be whittled down to what I can presently handle.

But I do remember double digging a plot or two and the longtime benefit it rendered.

Well, that is enough reminiscing for now… garden season has begun and I need to use this sunny day to attend to some garden work.

Blessings to you all, my friends.

Flowers that Monet Grew In Giverny

October 12, 2015 by Ilona Erwin

Which Flowers Did Monet Grow?

Many of us are familiar with Claude Monet’s luminous paintings of his garden, but what of the gardener that created the scenes that capture our admiration? How did his garden grow?

In his famous garden at Giverny we might know that Monet grew waterlilies, of which he made a number of famous paintings, but what other flowers did Claude Monet plant in his beloved garden? It turns out that there were tulips, wisteria, dahlias, sunflowers, asters… combined for the love of color and the joy of a sunny day in France.

We might know many of the flowers by simply looking closely at his paintings, but unlike many other landscapes and gardens, Monet’s Giverny is a garden which people can visit even today, one which is recreated to give us a firsthand look at his artistic vision. The story of his garden, and the flowers which inhabit it, unfolds…

Well Known Old Fashioned Flowers

Garden Plants Our Grandmothers Knew

monet pink peony — source: creative commons

Monet grew many of the flowers familiar to the old fashioned gardens of his time.

Roses, clematis, poppies, and of course, the walkway rimmed with nasturtiums.
Great stands of German Bearded Iris, an array of color in late spring.
Tulips and forget-me-nots, pansies, and wisteria vines and azalea bushes.
Alliums in number and the sweetly fragrant, blowsy peonies grew there, snapdragons and golden daffodils.
Annual Nasturtiums line the famous arch covered path which led to the porch of his house.

ANNUALS GROWN IN THIS GARDEN

Marigold
Antirrhinum
Sweet Pea
Ipomoea

Narrated History And May Scenery Introduce Giverny

Monet's Garden: Through the Seasons at Giverny
Monet’s Garden: Through the Seasons at Giverny

Take your time meandering through the photographs and the story of one of the most famous gardens of the world. Study the flowers for yourself with this wonderful coffee table book.

Iris, Climbing Roses, Soft Pink Peonies

Tender pinks and blues makes a June border sing

What To Plant For Spring

A LIST OF SPRING FLOWERS GROWN IN GIVERNY GARDEN

Tulips, pansies, iris, and doronicum are some of the main plants. Accompanied by Aubrietas, Forget-me-nots, Crocus, and Viola cornuta.

Monet’s paintings show large groups of one color that sings during its time of bloom. Blue-purple iris has its day in the sunny late spring.

APRIL

Tulips, Pansies, Forget-me-nots, Narcissus, Aubrieta, cherry and crab-apple blossom, Fritillaries.

MAY

Iris, peony, poppies, geraniums, wisteria, wallflower, rhododendron, golden rain tree bloom, daisies, delphiniums.

Small flowers which bloom earlier than most daffodils

My very favorite tiny and *early* daffodils. Make sure these miniature type of narcissus is planted towards the front of any display, with crocus or Sternbergia in front of them, or alyssum at their feet.

Peak bloom in the garden at Giverny is May-June

Springtime Views at Monet’s Garden

Many Blooms For June

In case you decide to fill your own landscape with Impressionist color, or wish to reproduce a similar historical era garden, this list may be very useful for you.

Monet’s French garden is located in a warmer hardiness zone than most American gardens, unless they are located in the South or Coastal regions. Many of the plants he used in his gardens are, however, quite hardy for most gardens.

A place to buy some of these fine plants online is Nature Hills Nursery. Or you can try to find them on Amazon or in your local nursery. Keep the list handy on your phone or in your garden journal.

Perennial Garden Plants

Roses- Todays David Austin roses would be an excellent choice to grow.
Clematis- Clematis are widely available and grow vertically on a trellis. Ideal for smaller gardens.
Heliopsis- These are large, late season, golden, wild sunflower flowers. Beautiful for a country style garden.
Bearded Iris- Old fashioned German iris available in a rainbow of colors. Bloomtime late May.
Oenothera- Evening primroses are biennials and are sweetly scented.
Campanulas- Many forms of campanula can be planted in the garden, although the midsize bellflowers are the old fashioned garden variety.Blue Waterfall Bellflower
Globe thistle- Globe Thistle Perennial 8 Plants – Echinops Ritro
Blue Hydrangeas- the macrophyllas are usually less hardy, but there are some modern ones like ‘Endless Summer’ which fare better in northern gardens.
Carnations- the type will depend on your hardiness climate. Diainthus of the smaller types are often very hardy, while the larger florist types are much less hardy.

Blooming by Season

Late Spring and Early Summer Flowers

What To Grow In Summer

A LIST OF SUMMER FLOWERS GROWN IN GIVERNY GARDEN

In the paintings and photographs phlox and asters are noticeable. Roses open mainly in the month of June, along with the end of the peonies. Lilies begin in June and certain varieties go throughout August. It must have been a deliriously fragrant place at this time of year.

JULY AND AUGUST

Anemone, Asters, Bellflowers, Cannas, Dahlias, Heliopsis, Lilies, Oenathera, Rudbeckia, Salvias, Sunflowers, Solidago, Verbascum

Brief Profiles Of Main Summer Blooms

Summer Asters and Heliopsis

Asters and Heliopsis, Dahlias and Black-eyed Susans

How To Grow Asters

Asters grow in part to full sun exposure. They take average soil and moisture conditions. There are a number of types of asters, both perennial and annual.

How To Grow Dahlias

Tender bulbs with rainbow of colors and many size and shapes to the blooms and plants. Monet’s garden had the larger blooms in sunset colors and some of the more tender pinks, but not limited to those. A big impact bloom that you can build your own palette of color around, in containers and in the garden. Lift the tender bulbs in fall and store over winter.

How To Grow Sunflowers

Full Sun, average moisture to dry, these are easily grown from seed, and will reseed if you give them a chance.

painting by Claude Monet — Garden at Vétheuil

How To Grow Nasturtiums

Cheerful bright, edible flowers with round bright green leaves. Annual flowers that fill your summer garden with beautiful colors ranging from the more common oranges and yellows to selected colors such as mahogany and apricots. Tall Single Blend Nasturtium Seeds – 3g So easy a child can grow them. Beautiful for edgings, vegetable and cutting gardens. Annuals grown from seed. Don’t overfertilize, or you will have far more leaves than flowers. These flowers, stems, and leaves add a peppery taste to salads, Yes, they are edible. Aphid magnets.

How To Grow Heliopsis

Bold golden sunflowers, and some of their variants in harvest colors make Monet’s garden sparkle. They give height and birds love to feed on the seeds. Need full sun.

A golden daisy flower, native to American prairies. Full sun. They grow easily, but are a bit tall and ungainly on their own. Combine with tall asters (Michaelmas daisies) to bolster them and lend some interest between their loftly heads and the ground.

How To Grow Oenothera

“Evening Primrose” with a soft lemon yellow flower. Full sun. Easy from seed, it is a biennial.

Monet’s Family Home

monetshouse

This is where Claude Monet, his second wife Alice, and their eight children made their home and for 40 years centered in this domestic and artistic bliss.

By 1899, a greenhouse and another studio were added.

The garden closest to the house is a traditional Normandy clos, a walled garden for vegetables and fruit which we know as a “kitchen garden”. This is a very old form of garden, which Monet imprinted with his own sensibilities, adding the arches and many colorful annual flowers.

The well known water garden is located across the road, now reached by a tunnel for the ease of the many visitors from around the world. In that garden is the water lily pond and Japanese bridge. Wisteria, water lilies, weeping willow, and bamboos combine to create the little piece of paradise that Monet’s paintings captured in so many ways from far and near views.

Claude Monet died in 1926, and his house and gardens passed on to the French Academy of Fine Arts. After which the garden declined until new interest resulted in a restoration of the garden which began in the late 1970s.

Giverny is essentially a country garden, with loosely planted menage of many old fashioned flowers favored in the nineteenth century.

Keep In Mind

That like many large gardens of the time, full time employed gardeners did the work and maintained the look of these gardens. One gardener had the task of cleaning soot off the waterlily leaves, while Monet wrote instructions to his gardening staff daily.

A Bit of the Garden’s History

Located in France, 50 miles from Paris in Normandy, Claude Monet first saw Giverny from a train window and in 1883 he rented a house there. It became the home that he bought, with its barn turned studio, and eventually the original two acres expanded to five acres planted with the now famous gardens.

The original place had taken on a transformation. At first, a farmhouse surrounded by an orchard, Monet tore out all but a few of the original fruit trees. The formal aspect of the allée leading to the house was retained, but after winning out in the argument with his wife, Monet removed the spruce trees and replaced them with the now widely recognized metal arches, covered in roses and clematis.

Created In Cottage Style

Giverny is a country garden that grew directly from the fertile imagination of a great artist, Claude Monet. It is a good example of cottage style with closely planted od fashioned flowers spilling over each other.

While it uses many of the common flowers of the day, like his art, the rendering and the palette was groundbreaking for his time, and he had some convincing to do in his community to make peace with his neighbors over the way he designed and planted his property.

His Renowned Lily Pond

The Lily Pond
Source: Catriona Savage

Daffodils By The Famous Bridge

Daffodils, Source: moonlightrainbow.tumblr.com[/caption]

Monet sprinkled daffodils throughout his design. He loved sunny yellow paired with blue, a color combination that filled his kitchen.

Get Inspired To Plant Your Own Backyard

Monet's Passion: Ideas, Inspiration, and Insights from the Painter's Gardens
Monet’s Passion: Ideas, Inspiration, and Insights from the Painter’s Gardens
Monet’s Passion: Ideas, Inspiration, and Insights from the Painter’s Gardens

Consider this for your bookshelf if you are thinking of adding Monet’s signature look to your own cottage style garden. Pull ideas from his artistic genius and paint your own yard with brilliant landscaping insights.

The Brush of the Artist

The Garden Depicted Through Time

An interesting thing about the paintings of his garden are how they change over time. It is still recognizably the same place, but the seasonal displays and then the actual color perception becomes quite different as he catches the plein air look with his oils and brushes.

One of Monet’s paintings records his impression of a certain time and atmosphere in his garden. A photo of another time, in both era and season. As his eyesight worsened the colors he saw, and painted, changed in tone.

Phlox, peonies, roses, and iris of a June bloom may be noted in many of the the photographs and videos. Nasturtiums, asters, sunflowers and in others.

Compare The Eye Of The Camera With Monet’s

Bearded Irises

Common Wayside Plants

The most common wayside plants in his garden were white oxeye daisies, crimson corn poppies, yellow flat iris, and wispy oat grasses. He called these plants, ‘the soul of the garden.’

-Derek Fell

Purple Asters Are A Border Mainstay

Michaelmas Daisies, New England asters

AKA “Michaelmas Daisies”

Outsidepride Aster New England - 1000 Seeds

Outsidepride Aster New England – 1000 Seeds

A native perennial plant to the US Midwest which will provide blue blooms in late summer. Very easy to grow from seed, these will lend some of Monet’s favorite colors to a late season border.

Color Lessons In House And Garden

There are plenty of art lessons to be had in Monet’s garden at Giverny. As some of the photos here illustrate, some of the plans unite complementary colors, those which are opposite on the color wheel, like blue and orange, while others are harmonies.

Primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, secondary colors green and orange are used in the entry path of the garden.

The famous waterlily pond has the color combination used at the house: pink and green with the all important blue green accents ) although the paint was originally a bright green which fades to blue green with age).

Narcissus Brings A Golden Light

The spring blooming bulbs in their cheery yellow tints are among the easiest to grow and the most likely to be perennial in flower borders.

Bring several varieties into your flower pictures, they have many sizes and a number of bloom seasons in spring: early, mid, and late.

How To Naturalize Bulbs

Golden yellow for spring

50 Large Yellow 'Tamara' Daffodil Flower Bulbs
50 Large Yellow ‘Tamara’ Daffodil Flower Bulbs

Buy a whole lot of bulbs to naturalize, creating a drift of golden yellow. This is the way an artist will plant a cloud of daffodil blooms. They will multiply over time and can be divided.

Giverny in August

Poster Picture of the Main Garden Path — If you love Impressionistic paintings of this artist: Buy These Posters at Allposters.com

Monet’s pathway

Giverny : Claude Monet’s garden – flower list
Official list of flowers grown in Monet’s famous garden.

The Garden at Giverny – The colors and harmonies that Monet loved

Import Plans Into Your Own Landscape

Monet’s Planting Schemes

Learn from the master, recipes of flower plants to repeat beautiful harmonies of flowers in your own garden.

In 1893, the artist managed to buy the meadow located across the road from his home. In this meadow he dug a pond and built his Oriental garden with its brightly painted Japanese bridge.

“… Monet made a temporary model from bamboo canes and wire experimenting with the different effects.” in order to decide where to position his Japanese bridge.

These are a few of the insights into creating an artist’s garden that is admired the world over.
Color Harmonies

Planting Schemes from Monet's Garden (Garden Inspirations)
Planting Schemes from Monet’s Garden (Garden Inspirations)

Any admirer of cottage gardens and impressionistic colorplay will enjoy having this book on their bookshelf. It will provide hours of fascination as the planting schemes can be duplicated or built upon in one’s own garden.

Summertime View Of The Garden

Painted Tones Changed With His Eyesight

It must have been fall, or at least late summer

Monet – Magnificent Impressionist Painter

MORE FACTS ABOUT THE MAN, Short Timeline

Monet was born November 14th, 1840 in Paris.

Entered Le Havre secondary school of the arts in 1851

Monet and Camille Doncieux married in 1870, she died in 1879.

Alice Hoschedé helped raise his children and eventually married Claude Monet in 1892.

Monet died of lung cancer on 5 December 1926 at the age of 86.

Giverny poster

Source: Cafe Les Nymphias… at Allposters.com

Discussion on What Versailles May Teach a Modern Homeowner

August 30, 2015 by Ilona Erwin

I found the following video fascinating. It covers many topics of interest to modern homeowners and gardeners, foodies and historians.

I want to take some of the quotes- there were so many! The simplest, most zenlike is that there is no garden without the gardener. Watch the video… which topic struck you as one to think about?

In discussing the present caretakers of the historical kitchen garden of Versailles, the distinction of a modern landscaper versus a gardener is made. The idea is that landscape architects do not see themselves as gardeners. Can you see how this may be a conflict when a garden is designed? Or landscapers are hired to plant around a home? What kind of considerations may need adjustment?
The point is made of making the garden support itself. This is often considered crass, whether making a blog or making a garden. Yet, it is something the think about. Do our gardens make the best use of the space, does it provided food?
Varieties of plants: are modern ones better or worse than heirlooms? How often do we engage in a kind of plant snobbery, when the taste of fruits or vegetables, their vigor, or the choice of what we grow ought to rather rely on what works best in our gardens? Who best to make that judgment than the home gardener, himself?
Are we addicted to herbicides and pesticides because of our ideas of what “looks good”? Can we exchange the artificial forms of “beauty” for something more ecologically balanced?

Those are some of the thoughts I had, inspired b listening to the lecture.