I am an avid yet amateur gardener from Bucuresti Romania, now residing in Connecticut. I purchased my Mother's home after being away for years. She is an incredible gardener and her being British I believe gives her an advantage. I on the other hand having been born in a city was not so lucky in the green-thumb department. Okay, I know geography has nothing to do with talent but I don't want to take the fall for my poor gardening skills.
The property had a very English cottage garden style feel to it when I returned but alas was terribly overgrown. I'm not really in garden "restoration". With limited photos and my own gardening naievity, I would rather build a cottage garden of my own than simply restoring my mother's. I have been a fan of GardenWeb (http://www.gardenweb.com/ ) for over two months since I found it. I really like the pictures and ideas. I also find the forums like "frugal" of great interest due to my limited funds. My favorite forum is Cottage gardening ( http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/cottage/ ).
Sorry, I'm not great with plant names yet because I still have a lot to learn but, I will be reading GardenWeb and posting here as I go and hope to share pics and opinions with you soon enough.
A little about myself, more to follow:
My father, wife, and myself are Romanian, my mother is British ( but now an American citizen). I live in her house in Connecticut. She got the house from a cousin whose great great, had moved here from England in the 1800's. Anyway, lets set things straight.
I've now owned the house for three years.
The fist year I left the gardens as is, meadow like, very overgrown to the point that statues were obscured by a screen of weeds and vines in a rather post apocalyptic style.
The second year, having thinned it all out in the early spring, I laid a brick edging and took back the beds.
that same summer I started with perennials.
This the third year, I see not everything took, and I left one back walled bed to do as it pleased. A thistle, and some stringy plant along with four cosmos popped up. So early in the summer I planted my tomatoes and peppers there. This looks odd in the very formal walled garden but it worked freeing up time for me to spend on defining the remaining beds.
I really know next to nothing of gardening. My property is very shaded and I'm always trying to force sun plants to thrive there with very little success (go figure).
The people at GardenWeb really have been helpful and I hope to rely on their help in the future. I haven't really identified much in my garden because I'm not sure what it all is. The things I buy in the garden center that look amazing on the shelf always look lost in my beds. Weeds seem to like me but if I pull them I lose flowers because I couldn't tell them apart.
Sierra, Annette, Nancy, and Nell, you are wonderful people from GardenWeb who care enough for a fellow gardener to lend a helpful hint. My wife once joined a recipe site but left it finding the people were rude and ignoring her questions, passing her over as a novice. The one thing I bragged to her about is how friendly everyone here is.
I started this project in honor of my Mother who is now in long-term care. I even left her Union jack waving on the flag pole in the back garden. My dream is to have a party for her birthday on the lawn in her old garden all up to date next year. Something for her to sit and relax in.
I love coming in and checking the GardenWeb forums, looking at the responses, its now a part of my routine. I'm learning a great deal from the entrees. I only put water on my plants, I do nothing to the soil and I rarely use miracle-gro. This always worked for my mother but she seemed to have a talent for these things. I do recall her adding fresh cow manure and a white powder called rabbits blood, I think? But to what, and when, I'm not sure.
I don't do annuals because I'm too cheap and nothing from seed ever grown much for me. I love my cone flowers and my black-eyed-susans but I'd be grateful for some red in the garden too. My lavender never grows as it did for her and my bee-balm puts on a good show only in parts of the garden.
So you see. I enjoy gardening and reading GardenWeb immensely and I not only want to, but need to learn from you all, and since I cannot seem to post pics there, I'll post them here.
Thanks,
Mihai (Derelict gardener. on GardenWeb)
No comments:
Post a Comment