a proper english garden
 

hello, I live in pennsylvania, u.s.a. and I'm landscaping my yard. would like to do something akin to an english garden. I thought I would go right to the source. Can anyone over ther tell me exactly what an english garden is. how would i start? thank you for your advice.

a proper english garden
 

Hi Greengrass

To establish an English Garden, you need rain and sunshine and a temperature
range as ours is here. Do you have that?

Do you have 'Green Grass'?

Mike

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------

"greengrass" wrote in message
...

hello, I live in pennsylvania, u.s.a. and I'm landscaping my yard.
would like to do something akin to an english garden. I thought I would
go right to the source. Can anyone over ther tell me exactly what an
english garden is. how would i start? thank you for your advice.


--
greengrass

a proper english garden
 

"greengrass" wrote in message
...

hello, I live in pennsylvania, u.s.a. and I'm landscaping my yard.
would like to do something akin to an english garden. I thought I would
go right to the source. Can anyone over ther tell me exactly what an
english garden is. how would i start? thank you for your advice.
greengrass

American related "English gardening" :

http://landscaping.about.com/cs/hist..._history_3.htm
http://experts.about.com/q/Landscapi...arden-idea.htm

or take a course :~)
http://www.englishgardeningschool.co.uk/

Jenny

a proper english garden
 

greengrass wrote:
hello, I live in pennsylvania, u.s.a. and I'm landscaping my yard.
would like to do something akin to an english garden. I thought I would
go right to the source. Can anyone over ther tell me exactly what an
english garden is. how would i start? thank you for your advice.

I have friends who live in Philadelphia who love English gardens and
who go annually to that wonderful flower show. I think your chief
problem is going to be your sometimes very cold winters. We do have
comparatively mild, wet winters and long weeks of snow and ice are not
the norm. They just feel like it at times! I know your winters aren't
always terribly severe and you might live in one of the more mild areas
but whatever you plant is going to have to survive the worst case
scenario, unless you're prepared to keep replacing them. So - start
with the 'bones' of the garden, which is made up of the permanent
planting, such as trees, shrubs, lawns, hedges and any water interest
you want to add.
There's a magazine called The English Garden and if that's available in
USA, it will show you pictures of lots of different gardens here.
For the interest of urglers, I found this link:
http://www.pennsylvaniapride.com/default.aspx?pageid=19
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon

a proper english garden
 

"Sacha" wrote in message
oups.com...

greengrass wrote:
hello, I live in pennsylvania, u.s.a. and I'm landscaping my yard.
would like to do something akin to an english garden. I thought I would
go right to the source. Can anyone over ther tell me exactly what an
english garden is. how would i start? thank you for your advice.

I have friends who live in Philadelphia who love English gardens and
who go annually to that wonderful flower show. I think your chief
problem is going to be your sometimes very cold winters. We do have
comparatively mild, wet winters and long weeks of snow and ice are not
the norm. They just feel like it at times! I know your winters aren't
always terribly severe and you might live in one of the more mild areas
but whatever you plant is going to have to survive the worst case
scenario, unless you're prepared to keep replacing them. So - start
with the 'bones' of the garden, which is made up of the permanent
planting, such as trees, shrubs, lawns, hedges and any water interest
you want to add.
There's a magazine called The English Garden and if that's available in
USA, it will show you pictures of lots of different gardens here.
For the interest of urglers, I found this link:
http://www.pennsylvaniapride.com/default.aspx?pageid=19
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon



Might I also recommend tonnes of rubble 2 inches below the soil from where
the builders could not be bothered to dispose of the waste properly, a
Morrison's carrier bag that mysteriously keeps reappearing due to next doors
rubbish bags splitting open and an empty tin of lager propped against your
wall during World cup season courtesy of the locals having footy parties.


--
*..· ´¨¨)) -:¦:-
¸.·´ .·´¨¨))
((¸¸.·´ .·´ -:¦:- *Jackie* -:¦:-
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´*

This is mine:


http://thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Pic...um%20Index.htm

lol sounds likeyou live in a livelyneighborhood

a proper english garden
 

In message , Jackie
Brown writes

Might I also recommend tonnes of rubble 2 inches below the soil from where
the builders could not be bothered to dispose of the waste properly, a
Morrison's carrier bag that mysteriously keeps reappearing due to next doors
rubbish bags splitting open and an empty tin of lager propped against your
wall during World cup season courtesy of the locals having footy parties.


If it's a country garden there ought to be a semi-natural area with wild
daffodils, wood anemones, primroses or cowslips etc etc naturalised in
grass under orchard trees. You can't cut the grass until the leaves
die down in July or August so other wild flowers tend to move in -
eyebright, mallow, milkmaids' smocks, cuckoo pint, patches of stinging
nettles (essential for your butterflies) and the odd bramble.

For true authenticity, you can't beat the interesting shapes and warm
rust tones of a cast-iron bed end, a derelict bicycle, a few corrugated
iron sheets and some road cones.

--
Sue ];(:)

a proper english garden
 

"MadCow" wrote in message
...
In message , Jackie
Brown writes

Might I also recommend tonnes of rubble 2 inches below the soil from where
the builders could not be bothered to dispose of the waste properly, a
Morrison's carrier bag that mysteriously keeps reappearing due to next doors
rubbish bags splitting open and an empty tin of lager propped against your
wall during World cup season courtesy of the locals having footy parties.


If it's a country garden there ought to be a semi-natural area with wild
daffodils, wood anemones, primroses or cowslips etc etc naturalised in
grass under orchard trees. You can't cut the grass until the leaves
die down in July or August so other wild flowers tend to move in -
eyebright, mallow, milkmaids' smocks, cuckoo pint, patches of stinging
nettles (essential for your butterflies) and the odd bramble.

For true authenticity, you can't beat the interesting shapes and warm
rust tones of a cast-iron bed end, a derelict bicycle, a few corrugated
iron sheets and some road cones.
Sue ];(:)

You forgot the Ford transit without an engine.............
Jenny :~)

a proper english garden
 

"Scotia" wrote in message
...

greengrass Wrote:
hello, I live in pennsylvania, u.s.a. and I'm landscaping my yard.
would like to do something akin to an english garden. I thought I would
go right to the source. Can anyone over ther tell me exactly what an
english garden is. how would i start? thank you for your advice.

This is mine:
http://tinyurl.com/ly5wp
Scotia

Nice site :~)) So well organised!
But I could not find any reference to whereabouts UK you are.........?
Jenny

a proper english garden
 

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------

"JennyC" wrote in message
...

"MadCow" wrote in message
...
In message , Jackie
Brown writes

Might I also recommend tonnes of rubble 2 inches below the soil from
where
the builders could not be bothered to dispose of the waste properly, a
Morrison's carrier bag that mysteriously keeps reappearing due to next
doors
rubbish bags splitting open and an empty tin of lager propped against
your
wall during World cup season courtesy of the locals having footy
parties.


If it's a country garden there ought to be a semi-natural area with wild
daffodils, wood anemones, primroses or cowslips etc etc naturalised in
grass under orchard trees. You can't cut the grass until the leaves
die down in July or August so other wild flowers tend to move in -
eyebright, mallow, milkmaids' smocks, cuckoo pint, patches of stinging
nettles (essential for your butterflies) and the odd bramble.

For true authenticity, you can't beat the interesting shapes and warm
rust tones of a cast-iron bed end, a derelict bicycle, a few corrugated
iron sheets and some road cones.
Sue ];(:)

You forgot the Ford transit without an engine.............
Jenny :~)


and the discarded washing machine along with the rusted bit of chain link
fence bedded in amongst the nettles

Mike

It was at the top of my reply;



Location: Huddersfield which is in Yorkshire

a proper english garden
 

greengrass wrote:
hello, I live in pennsylvania, u.s.a. and I'm landscaping my yard.
would like to do something akin to an english garden. I thought I
would go right to the source. Can anyone over ther tell me exactly
what an english garden is. how would i start? thank you for your
advice.

Others have made some suggestions. It might be an idea to have a look
at what Auntie BBC's gardeners are doing, via her website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/tv_an...ld/index.shtml
or
http://tinyurl.com/ofqns

They have a number of small demonstration gardens, some of them changed
every year, and some more permanent, and they let you into the thinking
that underlies them. You'll read a lot of criticism of television
gardeners here in u.r.g., but that's just part of the fun -- the
Gardener's World people do actually know what they're doing: they're
gardeners first and TV personalities last.

I doubt if you'll find the engineless Ford and washing machine there,
though: those sound more like a cruelly stereotypical West Virginia yard
than the archetypal English garden!

Your question made me think about what an "English" garden actually is.
Even after thinking, I wasn't at all sure. But I think it's probably
about a sense of timelessness and comfort: Grandpa may not have done it
exactly the same, but he'd still feel at home. That means quite a lot of
perennials and bulbs, and a basic structure provided by trees and shrubs
(I think it was Sacha who mentioned the element of structure). I'd want
an apple tree or two. It needs birds. A big trick to pull off is to
generate the sense that this garden is a home for plants but also for
people -- you don't want a film set, where it would be a disaster if
the kids or the dog knocked a few things sideways. I think of the way
people dress he "I've been wearing this old Shetland sweater for ten
years, and I like it, thank you." There's always a relaxing underlying
theme of green, reflecting the native climate: it's usually calm and
cool, like the people (I don't know which came first!). Individuals grow
an enormous range of things against the green background ranging from
the garish to the understated, but that background is always there even
in a heat wave.

Do keep telling us what you're doing, even where you disagree --
disagreement is what we do best here!

--
Mike.

you think an old rusted pickup on cinder blocks would be a nice garden decoration? there's a lot of that in southern md. My brother had his yard overdecorated.lol

your garden is awesome!!!