Lots of rain!

My magnolia is finally blooming and loving all the rain:

I hope she likes it!

This lady needed some drought resistant plants for a bare patch in her garden.

So I shared some Sedum, Mums, Snow-in-Summer, Dead Nettle, Iris and Day lilies.

 Colour scheme Pink and Purple with a splash of white and yellow.

 

https://youtu.be/GPUdEeI_8H0 

 

The Hidden Life of Trees

 

https://www.viewbug.com/photo/69470525?it#behindthelens

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Joyce Kilmer
1913
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Kilmer

How trees talk to each other | Suzanne Simard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un2yBgIAxYs

Peter Wohlleben a forester in Germany wrote book about it:
http://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin/talking-to-trees

 

Forester Peter Wohlleben says trees can communicate with one another. He joins The Agenda to talk about his book, "The Hidden Life of Trees", and the science behind how trees warn each other of danger, live near their family members and even develop best friends.

Intelligent Trees - The WEBSERIES - Episode One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNnKPJYiM-w

Interview - David Suzuki - Tree: A Life Story

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFB5d8Foblk

 

Horticulture meets Ecology

Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes
https://www.amazon.com/Planting-Post-Wild-World-Communities-Landscapes/dp/1604695536/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491303730&sr=8-1&keywords=planting+in+a+post+wild+world 

Over time, with industrialization and urban sprawl, we have driven nature out of our neighborhoods and cities. But we can invite it back by designing landscapes that look and function more like they do in the wild: robust, diverse, and visually harmonious. Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West is an inspiring call to action dedicated to the idea of a new nature—a hybrid of both the wild and the cultivated—that can flourish in our cities and suburbs. This is both a post-wild manifesto and practical guide that describes how to incorporate and layer plants into plant communities to create an environment that is reflective of natural systems and thrives within our built world.

Thomas Rainer
https://www.thomasrainer.com/about-1/

Thomas Rainer is a registered landscape architect, teacher, and author living in Arlington, Virginia. Thomas, a leading voice in ecological landscape design. Thomas is a specialist in applying innovative planting concepts to create ecologically-functional designed landscapes.

There is a need for a new kind of expertise--a hybrid of horticulture and ecology--to develop the next generation of green infrastructure.

https://www.thomasrainer.com/blog/2017/3/25/green-infrastructure-10-has-failed

Nigel Dunnet
http://www.nigeldunnett.com/about/

Professor of Planting Design, Urban Horticulture and Vegetation Technology in the Department of Landscape, University of Sheffield. He has pioneered the use of innovative approaches to landscape planting, and in the multi-functional use of vegetation in the built environment.

Dutch Designer Piet Oudolf:

http://oudolf.com/references

 

 https://www.amazon.ca/Planting-New-Perspective-Piet-Oudolf/dp/1604693703

Watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pscoRm8MnRI

 

 

The Process

New Venture!

 

Watch video:

 https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=LW5CSSlrsS8

Artistic Garden Design

  Gertrude Jekyll

  (29 November 1843—8 December 1932)

   "a premier influence in garden design"
 

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Jekyll
 

  For the best building and planting...

  the architect and gardener must have

  some knowledge of each other's business,

  and each must regard

  with feelings of kindly reverence

  the unknown domains

  of the other's higher knowledge.
 

  http://www.azquotes.com/author/7396-Gertrude_Jekyll

MUNSTEAD WOOD

This is a Grade I listed house and garden in Munstead Heath, Busbridge on the boundary of the town of Godalming in Surrey, England, 1 mile (1.6 km) south-east of the town centre. The garden was created first, by garden designer Gertrude Jekyll.

 

"I think the garden reflects the personality of the owner. I like variety and colour - a bit of a jumble. That's the kind of person I would like to know. I think a garden should be fun!" - Annabel Watts main gardener at Mustead Wood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKVKcpE_gIg

LINDISFARNE CASTLE

The work of Edwin ‘Ned’ Lutyens and Gertrude ‘Bumps’ Jekyll in the first decades of the 20th-century saw the most dramatic changes made to the castle since the time of Elizabeth I.
Lutyens' renovation of the place, along with Jekyll’s planting plan for the garden and the castle surrounds, gave Edward Hudson (their patron) a comfortable – if slightly exposed – holiday home.

 

Since no major changes were made by Hudson’s successors, it is largely the Lutyens/Jekyll project which still greets the visitor today.

Her first plan was for a vegetable garden but it was her second plan, that of a summer flower garden, that was planted in 1911. This plan is the one our gardeners work to today. Bumps provided the garden with a wealth of colour during the summer months and designed it to be especially prolific during the month of August.  Flowers include eight varieties of sweet peas, two of which are the delicate 'Miss Wilmott' and the deep crimson 'Queen Alexander'.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/lindisfarne-castle/features/lutyens-and-jekyll-transform-lindisfarne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x04663weHcM

HESTERCOMBE HOUSE

The Edwardian garden was laid out by Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens between 1904 and 1906 for the Hon E.W.B. Portman, resulting in a garden "remarkable for the bold, concise pattern of its layout, and for the minute attention to detail everywhere to be seen in the variety and imaginative handling of contrasting materials, whether cobble, tile, flint, or thinly coursed local stone".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaU96kN13pc

THE MANOR HOUSE GARDENS

In 1908 when she was 65 Gertrude Jekyll designed a garden owned by Charles Holme at Upton Grey.

Gertrude Jekyll drew plans for the four and a half acre garden. On this chalky, sloping site she designed one of her most beautiful gardens. It includes many features of a typical Jekyll garden, but on a rather smaller scale than most of her commissions.
The whole is faithfully restored to the many plans and plants that Jekyll prescribed.
 

http://www.greatbritishgardens.co.uk/england/item/the-manor-house.html