My name is Heather, and my husband and I garden in Macon, Georgia. We moved into our historic home 13 years ago, and we set to work creating a cottage-style landscape that would allow us to grow vegetables, enjoy cut flowers, and still provide plenty of space for our young children. About five years ago, we purchased the empty gravel parking lot next door to us. At this point, we created a potager-style vegetable garden with boxwood border, installed a rock path, and added many perennials. In our zone, it is extremely hot and humid, and we’ve found that coneflower (Echinacea), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), Salvia, daylilies (Hemerocallis), and native mountain mint (Pycnanthemum) perform well for us. I always plant zinnias and sunflowers in honor of my late grandfather, who always grew them. We also have a variety of hydrangeas and David Austin roses scattered throughout. Our lot is about a half acre and includes an outdoor living space as well, but I’ve just included photos of our favorite garden areas (as well as a couple of “before” photos). It’s been a DIY labor of love.
Before—there was really nothing here.
Starting the process of transforming the space into a garden
And after—what a transformation!
Roses were trained to grow up this post.
Looking across the garden, the glossy foliage of a southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora, Zones 7–10) frames the view to one side.
Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus, annual) bloom by the corner of the house in honor of Heather’s late grandfather.
The lush bounty of the vegetable garden entices young gardeners to enjoy.
A fist-full of homegrown floral beauty
Fresh nutrition from the garden
Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love,
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A fad in modern architecture and gardening or a necessity to bring back nature into industrialised densely built urban landscapes? Living green walls are becoming more and more popular, so we decided to explore the benefits, installation and maintenance process of these structures. Read on to find out how long they have been around, why so many buildings are having them, and how you can make one for your home.
As the country begins taking stock of the damage caused by hurricane Ophelia and works to restore power to much of Scotland and Northern England, gardeners throughout the country are lamenting the destruction of their gardens.
In Yorkshire we are lucky to have several gardens designed using the theme of a Himalayan Garden. The Hut near Ripon at Grewlthorpe is  ‘The Himalayan Garden’ with all the plants you would expect in such a setting including
A rock garden is a grand place to display your alpine plants. You can shade them with rocks, provide deep root runs and provide rain cover with perspex roofs
Britain has some of the best gardens in the world. The choice of which to visit is far larger than this selective list but at least it gives you somewhere to start planning this years outings.
In the cold wet winter it is a good time to plan where to visit as the year improves. The South West is the obvious place to start your visiting tour of gardens containing exotic plants.
China is one of the great destinations for visiting gardens. The influence over garden design and the vast array of plants and flowers is secondary to the investment in time and dedication demonstrated in so many great locations. This is just a selection of those you may consider visiting if you can make the journey..
Peace is not just the absence of war it can be a reflection of a personal inner tranquility. To many gardeners peace may be a state of harmony with nature. It is a theme of several ‘hard landscape’ projects and sculptural works as shown by the selection of Peace gardens below.
Holland Park has some Zen like features but fails my Zen test. The classic elements of a successful Zen are stone, sand or gravel, water, plants and space. Then there is a question of balance between yin and yang. Cramped or cluttered gardens inhibit the flow of spirit so space is potentially the key ingredient of a Zen garden.
I was picking the Czar plums to make more jam when a wasp was disturbed from eating it’s lunch. Wasps go for my plums just as they are at their sweetest best. My problem was I couldn’t see which plums had a wasp in the fruit if they were above head height or facing away from my hand. The resulting sting set me on the trail of other stingers in the garden.