My husband
and I built our home in a hillside apple orchard. We incorporated
apple trees into our garden. This is a perfect spot to drink our morning
coffee!
Today's
photos are from Patty Clark out in Washington. She says, "My
husband and I purchased two hillside acres for their southern exposure and
beautiful rural and mountain views. We wanted to create a relaxed and casual
garden that would flow with the surrounding apple trees. Way before the
internet I would study garden design by bringing home stacks and stacks of
books from the library. When designing my garden I had specific goals and
guiding principals. My new home and garden had to fit into our hillside
landscape; meaning we would not bulldoze everything into a flat space. We
carved out large levels from the slope and created three multilevel garden
spaces. I had to be patient.....we developed one level at a time over over the
last twenty years."
Again we incorporated the 60 year old apple trees into our
garden plan. This is our perfect spot for bird watching!
I encourage all gardens to become a Certified Wildlife
Habitat. It's an easy online process and even a gardener living in an apartment
with a deck can be certified!
This pic
shows my main level garden room with the sidewalk to our front door.
My main level shade garden is full of hostas and conifers.
This pic shows 'Invincible' and 'Francee' hostas, and
Alchemilla with a spruce standard.
I designed this Moon Gate Arbor to connect my north and
south facing garden rooms. It is smothered with 'Russell's Cottage' (a pre-1826
rambler) and 'Francis Lester' (introduced 1946) roses.
My garden room is pretty much lime, purple, and pink. This
pic shows 'Royal Pink' cotinus, 'Limemound' spirea, and 'John Cabot' rose.
AFTER: My upper level lawn features dry stone stacked
walls. We planted Norway spruce and 'Sunburst' locust 20 years ago.
BEFORE pic of our upper level area.
Here is a pic of our new fire pit we put in last summer.
We named our garden Clark Park! 'Karl Foerster' grasses are
planted in front of our rail fence.
I spruced up a bare unattractive wall with a pot garden! I
winter over all the pots in my garage.
This is my lower-level garden room.