Garden Inspiration
When it comes to gardening I crave creative inspiration! For some reason, my decorating abilities stop at the door. Why is landscaping and designing a garden layout so difficult for me?? I think my problem is that I don’t know what a plant is going to look like until it’s fully mature. It’s hard for me to picture what would look good where. And until I know what plants to put where, it’s hard to put any accessories in place.
Whenever my husband and I drive by a home with a beautiful garden, I’ll always smack the poor guy across the chest and demand that he slow down so that I may gawk and point and glean any useful ideas in those precious seconds while passing by. I’ve often been tempted to pull over and ask homeowners if I can look around. People come up with the coolest stuff sometimes!
What I really love is the idea of making my garden not only functional, but beautiful as well. I especially love creative ways to re-purpose what others might consider junk into fun, eye-catching pieces. I’m not one for plants growing out of old toilet bowls in my yard… but a few whimsical touches here and there can definitely add charm to your space. (If you’ve got flowers growing out of a toilet in your yard, more power to ya!)
Today, I’ve been playing around with the idea of creating a sunken herb garden in my front yard. I think it would be so cool to have a place a step or two down from the main lawn area in which I can plant my cooking and medicinal herbs. Here’s kind of an idea of what I have in mind:
photo credit: finegardening.com
See how the garden is about 2 ft below the main lawn level? That’s cool. I love the rock retaining wall. I love the gravel paths between the herb bed. I love how much more interesting this would be in my front yard than just plain old raised beds on the grass.
It’ll probably be years before we can do something like this, but I’m tucking the idea away for sure!
photo credit: finegardening.com
Don’t you just love this garden fence? I wouldn’t do my entire fence like this, but a small section in one special spot, or maybe along one side of the yard, would be fun. You could easily convert a free wooden pallet into this whimsical piece of art! I’m somewhat afraid of adding color for fear of stepping over the “just plain tacky” line… but I could handle this.
photo credit: finegardening.com
I think this is such a great trellis!! Anyone have any old scaffolding laying around that they wanna send my way? Very cute.
photo credit: chicagonow.com
These sunken pots are an appealing alternative to the traditional upright pots we are used to seeing. Love it! I’d definitely do herbs instead of strawberries though.
photo credit: katyelliott.com
Wow. I love this raised bed garden. It’s hard to see, but I just adore the woven willow edging running along the inside of the garden box. And the obelisk for growing snap peas or pole beans is gorgeous!! That would be so easy to make from a few long branches. Who says a vegetable garden can’t be beautiful?
A couple more examples of woven edging. Very pretty. I love the tomato cage in the photo on the right as well.
photo credit: pfeifferphotos.blogspot.com
This is exactly what I’ve been wanting to do along the front or back (or both!) sides of my house. What a beautiful way to extend the garden in small spaces. If you have a good, sunny location, you could plant a climbing vine such as cucumbers, peas, pole beans, etc on a wall panel like this. I love the herbs along the bottom of the panels, and flowers mixed in for color. Don’t forget that some flowers, such as nasturtium and marigolds make excellent companion plants for your veggies!
photo credit: blisstree.com
Here’s a great way to terrace a sloping yard. Beautiful to look at, and functional as well!
Love it. Love it. Love it!! Man, I can’t wait till Spring! I wish I could do all of these things at once. I wish I could get all of my landscaping done already, and have a beautiful yard. But alas, it’ll take some time, I know.
Have you had any garden inspiration lately that you can’t wait to try?
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What beautiful ideas all of those pictures show! I also get inspired by looking at other people’s ideas–I seem to have trouble coming up with them just in my own head! That idea about putting herbs in sunken pots is a good practical one besides looking cute–now that I’ve been growing some herbs for a couple of years, I see how prolifically some spread by the roots, so for certain ones, it would be great to have the roots contained in pots. I, too, like the idea of the sunken herb garden, along with the birdhouse theme on the top of the fence. Thanks for sharing all of those photos!
That is alot of good ideas! I love beautiful gardens but maintaining it is what is hard for me. When I had no children and a small garden, it was much easier, but I anticipate the day when my children enjoy the beauty also and will be big enough to help with it more. Until then, I may just stick some flowers among the veggies and enjoy that. We did that last year. It’s fun and certain flowers are helpful with deterring bugs. Thanks for the pictures!
http://www.fritzhaeg.com/garden/initiatives/edibleestates/main.html
You might like the Edible Estates movement. They try to get people to give up/minimalize the traditional resource-sucking turf grass and put in pretty veggies and fruits! Amazing how food can be so beautiful.
I feel your pain on the garden design. I have to look at A TON of inspiration to get it right. And I do worry about tipping over from modern eclectic to TACKY TOWN. I have had to move slooooowly away from a whimsical painted tire that seemed to be calling my name. It was adorable, but not right for MY gardens.
I have three raised bed veggie gardens, 4 feet by 4 feet. I’m not so handy, so I bought them at Home Depot and got lots of good rich soil from the local nursery. But I think they’re just as cool as my roses.
I’m right there with you, Kendra! Especially since the majority of my time during the warm months is spent outdoors – I want it to be beautiful! LOVE the photos you shared! That sunken garden you like – we ended up doing something similar in our front yard. Our front sloped down to the street, so we created little retaining walls with rock and then added some paths throughout and filled them with DG (decomposed granite – available locally). Then we added plantings of white iceberg roses, various lavenders, boxwoods, and herbs. A few more shrubs and plants finished it off along with a pistache tree. It only looks so good because I had a friend who is a garden designer help me! I, too, can decorate indoors, but I’m totally mystified when it comes to the yard.
Now I’m working on the vegetable garden. I found a fence helps my mind view it more like a room, but I’m still struggling a bit. Again, it had to be terraced due to our terrain, but I’m hoping this adds to it’s beauty when I’m all done. I love the potager gardens that incorporate flowers with vegetables, so I hope that my daughters cutting garden can work right in with my veggies – perhaps along the fence line? We’ll see as I get out there and actually work it.
Propagating apples from seed!
just what i have been thinking about for the past few (snow-covered) days – in the past, i have had containers of tomatoes and peppers, but this year, i need to go all out – the budget is thin and getting thinner and i need to produce our produce at home! i already know that my budget is going to be less than $100 when spring finally arrives here in pennsylvania and i need a plan – i have a big backyard and lots of energy – any thoughts on where to begin?
Theresa,
When you talk about your budget, are you talking about what you have to spend on gardening supplies? Do you already have seeds?
I love all the ideas! I get so itchy for spring weather this time of year, too, but then when it gets all warm and sometimes pretty hot I don’t want any part of it. I’m trying to get past all that and tell myself to remember how fun it was in the winter! LOL!
This isn’t helping my garden fever! Placing a Baker Creek order today and can’t wait to get started on some broccoli indoors. Garden inspiration to try? If I get plenty of food out of it I’ll be happy no matter what it looks like.
What a tease! Here in Wisconsin we’ve got snow, snow, snow for at least three more months so I can only daydream….
Oh no, Jill!! We have snow on the ground here too, but I’m *hoping* it’ll be gone and over with by Feb!! We’ll see
kendra – i have a $25 off of a $25 purchase coupon from gardens alive and i was planning to spend that on organic seed – they have a set of 10 different seeds that i could get with that, so the (around)$100 would be for everything else – we moved in here in the spring and all i have in the backyard right now is a concrete pad – in the sunniest spot in my yard! i am starting from scratch and open to anything!
Theresa,
Wow. With a concrete pad for a backyard, it sounds like the only thing you could do is raised beds. It would cost a LOT to tear all of that out… unless you know somebody. You’ll have to get pretty creative to stretch that $100 for raised beds and fill soil though. Do you have any scrap wood, or access to any, that you could make raised beds with? Or anything else you could use as containers? Unless you have a source, the soil you’ll need to plant in will probably take up much of that money. Don’t be discouraged though, you can do it! You may just have to start with a little at a time
What about the front yard? Could you plant some vegetable plants anywhere there?
kendra, i’m sorry, i was not clear – i have a decent-sized urban backyard (my lot is about 1/8 acre, my house has a very small footprint because it is tall instead of wide) i actually have a concrete pad the size of a garage in the corner of my backyard, it just happens to be the sunniest, flattest part of my yard – my mil rolled her eyes every time she came over, but i had tomatoes all across my front yard beds last year, but there is so little sun that i did not get one ripe tomato – i cellared about 65 green tomatoes and we got to eat about 50 of them over a six week period – still better and cheaper than a tomato that ripened on its way from thousands of miles away! i am looking for an inexpensive way to make my backyard soil worth planting and i need to learn to grow from seed – can you recommend a gardening blog for real people who need to do the work themselves with small budgets?
Theresa,
LOL, I hope to make this site a blog that covers gardening for real people with small budgets
If you wanna make your soil good for a garden you need to work in a lot of compost. You can buy it in bulk from local nurseries, or you can just amend your soil over time by tilling it up, adding chopped up leaves, farm animal manure (if you have a source locally), and other organic materials. Start a compost pile in a discreet area of your yard by adding grass clippings, leaves, and food scraps (leaving out any meat, grease, bones, or dairy products) so that you will have something to work with by Fall. Do you have a tiller? You’ll need to till up a spot and get to work making the soil good. It takes some time though, you may not be able to plant in it successfully right away. Get a soil pH test from the hardware store and see what your soil is lacking. You’ll have to do a little research into what you want to plant, the right pH level that you’ll need, and what you need to add to your existing soil to bring it to the pH level you need. Good luck!
kendra – that was a gracious response to me putting my foot in my mouth – i think when i wrote that i was thinking that you and your readers are probably lightyears ahead of me in gardening skills! thanks for the tips – i did not know that i could get a ph kit at the hardware store! i thought it was something complicated involving the county ag office -
Theresa,
You’ve inspired me to write a post on how to test your soil pH. I think it’s something that many people wonder about doing… including myself. Thanks
What a neat blog! In my quest for gardening ideas (our 3rd year), I stumbled across yours! I love all of the pictures, and I think I might try the obelisk for some of the peas in our garden this year – to be planted in a corner with no plans yet!
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