I'm starting to get in to ardisia and aspidistra; anyone have experience with them and suggested vendors?
Landscape/Garden Design
- Thread starter Phred
- Start date
Help Support Slippertalk Orchid Forum:
Phred
Well-Known Member
Hi Linus
Plant Delights Nursery has had the best selection of Aspidistra I’ve ever seen for sale. They also sell Ardisia.
https://www.plantdelights.com/
Already got Aspidistra from PD. Nurseries Carolinia is also a great source: Nurseries Caroliniana
Phred
Well-Known Member
Here’s a few shots of the gardens in the front of the property. I even had a tiny little lawn.
What is the yellow-chartreuse plant in the foreground of the last photo (growing with the lambs ear)?
Phred
Well-Known Member
Origanum vulgare 'Aureum' (Creeping Golden Marjoram)
Last edited:
Phred
Well-Known Member
These are the last photos I’m going to post on this garden. As you know from some of the photos I had a Bamboo hedge separating the garden from the road. The Bamboo was Phyllostachys aureosulcata (Yellow Groove Bamboo). It’s a running Bamboo but was kept from entering into the garden by a 2’ wall buried into the ground between it and the garden. I had no issues keeping it contained. I only removed it because each winter when we got a heavy snow it would bend over into the road (it was about 17’ tall) and the snow plow would come by and smash the tops off. It made a real mess and added a lot of work to my spring cleanup. I removed the bamboo and replaced it with a hedge of Emerald Green Arborvitae ( Thuja occidentalis ‘Smaragd’). I got a great deal on 50 and bought them before I was ready to them... has anyone else ever done that? I wanted to plant them on a berm to give the hedge more height but I couldn’t decide what kind of wall I wanted on the outside. I did the only thing I could think of... I built a wall out of cheap lumber, built the berm and planted the hedge. I planted the Arborvitae 2’ apart on center so they would grow together and block the view as completely and quickly as possible. By spring I had decided to use the artificial blue stone blocks pictured. I removed the wooden wall and replaced it with the block. The total length of the wall is 100’ not counting the driveway.
Tom-DE
Well-Known Member
Was it difficult to remove the bamboo?
Tom-DE
Well-Known Member
Just bookmarked this... hopefully they will have Magnolia sieboldii again.
Last edited:
Phred
Well-Known Member
Absolutely not. Bamboo roots need oxygen therefore their root system is shallow. I dug up some clumps with 3-5 culms each and sold them. The rest I lifted in 4x4' sections with a Bobcat and transplanted them to a friends garden.
Tom-DE
Well-Known Member
Good to know. With the right equipment, the job will be easier....
I’m waiting on some variegated camellias from nurcar...
Maybe camforest will have some in the future M. sieboldii? They are supposedly propagating Magnolia eternal spring for fall sales.
And as long as I’ve shared vendors, I’ll recommend issimaworks- $12 flat shipping!
Tom-DE
Well-Known Member
Hi Linus, who is camforest? issimaworks?
Tom-DE
Well-Known Member
Thank you, Linus.
Phred, can you give a rough estimate of the total cost of this garden?
Phred
Well-Known Member
Including hardscape (decks, fences and wall) about 10K a year over 10 years... 100K
It looks fabulous! My garden budget is WAY shoestring in comparison! Lots of fieldstone drug home from piles at the corners of farm fields, and salvaged items. And that us why I love gardening so much. Every person's individual vision translated into plants and hardscape!
Phred
Well-Known Member
Time for a new garden... the owners of this property visited my garden late one summer and asked if I would do some work for them. I don’t design/build gardens for a living so I can afford to work on my own terms more-so than the average landscaper. There are two things I require if I’m going to do this kind of work. The first, I would only take the project on if I could find the right stone (boulder) material for the hardscape. The second was that they understood that I don't work off of a plan. As I walk around a property I decide, based on the property, what I think would be best. I let them know I would explain to them what I had in mind beforehand but that it could change if my vision changed as the project progressed and they had to be okay with that. I don’t want to sound arrogant but if you like what I do then let me do it. If you want to decide the details of the garden there are thousands of others in the business you can hire. These are always my conditions if I’m going to spend so much time away from my own projects to work on theirs. It took me until the next summer to find stone I liked in a large enough quantity (45 ton) and once they agreed to my conditions I started their project.
This property had an approximate 45,000 gal pond built by the home owners some 10 years previous to my getting involved. The pond was ordinary and they wanted a Japanese ‘type’ garden around the pond. The only request they had was they wanted a better waterfalls... theirs was more like a slow trickling stream.
The following is that feature from start to finish. In the first photo you can see the large oak tree on the left. Their waterfall/stream where the cattails are growing and the pump ‘hidden’ behind the lattice.
I cut down the tree, removed all the other plant material in the area and the waterfalls.
I started to place the boulders one at a time starting in the water and worked my way to the top. It’s trial and error with a little starting over, here and there, until you get the look and function you want.
Once I had the look I wanted I made sure water actually ‘fell’ and landscaped around it.
This property had an approximate 45,000 gal pond built by the home owners some 10 years previous to my getting involved. The pond was ordinary and they wanted a Japanese ‘type’ garden around the pond. The only request they had was they wanted a better waterfalls... theirs was more like a slow trickling stream.
The following is that feature from start to finish. In the first photo you can see the large oak tree on the left. Their waterfall/stream where the cattails are growing and the pump ‘hidden’ behind the lattice.
I cut down the tree, removed all the other plant material in the area and the waterfalls.
I started to place the boulders one at a time starting in the water and worked my way to the top. It’s trial and error with a little starting over, here and there, until you get the look and function you want.
Once I had the look I wanted I made sure water actually ‘fell’ and landscaped around it.
Phred
Well-Known Member
This next feature is a favorite of mine. Because the shape of this pond was ordinary I wanted to obscure the shoreline wherever I could. I built this zigzag bridge that is on the land then cantilevered over the water then back on the land then cantilevered over the water again and then back onto the land. The deck boards were put on in a pattern that makes it look like the bridge is ‘snaking’ along the shore. The layout of this feature left me plenty of space to plant various species of water Iris on the shore and in the water... over 300 plants in all.
First are the area before photos.
The next photos show the building of the bridge. The last photo was taken one year latter just after the Iris bloom season but you can see how well everything has filled in. The second to the last photo shows the retaining wall I built from repurposed treated lumber dock pillings.
First are the area before photos.
The next photos show the building of the bridge. The last photo was taken one year latter just after the Iris bloom season but you can see how well everything has filled in. The second to the last photo shows the retaining wall I built from repurposed treated lumber dock pillings.
Similar threads
