Designer fountain made me remember that you may go for jail for storing water in your property

This pretty designer fountain or rather water feature, brought to my mind today two things.  

One that in some American states you may go to jail for storing water in your own property. I had no idea about it before, if you also, then read the story of Gary Harrington, who was storing rain water in his property. 

  

Second thing that came to my mind is the reconsideration of the look of my own water garden.

Are you - like me - the fan of water in the garden?

When for the first time I thought about my very first own garden, I realized that it will not be complete without some kind of “serious” water feature.  

I will spare you the initial idea of changing entire plot to a pond with bridges thrown over, just to be able  to walk around. The house surrounded with water - at that time the idea seemed to be really splendid. As you may guess not so much today.

Finally I’ve ended up with the pond of 1,6 m deep and 25 sqm – big enough to get the ecosystem able to keep and sustain balance. And minimum maintenance. Let’s be honest. In real life and in real garden there is nothing existing like complete self maintenance – there is always some work required, but the amount of work can make the real difference if you sum up all working hours in a week or month. One hour a week vs 10 hours a week – if you think about it.

After 9 years of struggle of different kinds (grass carp, algaevicious attacks, need for seasonal cleaning) the ecosystem almost got balanced, but there is something missing. And need to figure it out. Will let you know, so stay tuned.

Xoxo,

Ewa

Rusted steel design

We all divide in two groups: one accepts only shiny stuff in the garden and at home – if you are one of them, today’s post is definitely not for you, so may skip it this time and go on to the next page. The second group loves old stuff at home and in the garden, covered with patina and rust - if you are part of this group, welcome here today.

More and more at different garden shows that I am attending, I can see this trend getting popular. Rusted steel finish as different parts of designs. Rust is nice finish for garden art, garden sculptures and more.

Steel will rust anyway all by itself with the time if it’s exposed to little moisture, but there are methods to do really fast. Just google “how to rusted steel” and you will get the instructions. I am talking about really fast rusting methods – like in amazing just one hour. 
From what I know, there are available commercial patina solutions for rusted steel, but you can do it cheaper buying needed ingredients in the store. I found very useful instruction here. 

On the photos you can see that color of planting is complementing the rusted color. It looks pleasing, on the other hand little boring and static. But that’s easy to fix – you exchange some heucheras with neighbors or friends and it’s done, right?

Do you like rusted steel in the garden?

Recycled metal garden edge idea spotted in Netherlands

This recycled metal garden edge idea was spotted in Netherlands some time ago. The longer I look at it the more I like it.
It fits nicely in the modern gardens and modern rustical gardens. And goes well with simple planting. Like here - any type of ornamental grass looks great with it.
In the rustic ones it will not be that much outstanding. As always - there has to be a reason for adding any element to your landscape.

MORE RECYCLING IDEAS you will find by CLICKING HERE

PS. I went through the photos I was taking in the last year and never published for lack of time. There is plenty of extraordinary garden ideas that I will share.
So stay tuned!
Xoxo,
Ewa

Not Anyone Can Get These Beehives

Somebody came to the artist and asked kindly if he could carve and paint beehives for them. It's not a shop, so you never know whether artist will do it for you or not. He has a close look at you and he's got his own reasons... 
This request was accepted, so we could admire beehives standing in the yard and waiting to be picked up.
They will be used for bee keeping not for decoration only, so I guess they are not only beautiful, but functional as well.

Beehives by Jozef Chelmowski

Edible gardener meets decorative gardener

Edible gardener meets decorative gardener! Yes! That’s my kind of garden, so come and have a look and admire. These are the gardens that I like most. Maybe as a student of European art history I should appreciate the beauty itself, but sole beauty in the gardens makes them sort of egotistically empty, concentrated on itself and as it is in the definition of the egotism it means also ‘kind of socialized narcissism’. 

We are living in the age of total pollution. The Earth/ The Gaia is calling for rescue. Do you believe that each sole voice matters? Then make your garden ecological and produce fruits and veggies. If our gardens are maintained with heart and brain, we get what we need most – healthy produce that heals our body. So, if you don’t do it yet, have a look and get inspired! 

When you enter this garden you are taken by surprise of creative mix of edible garden and beautiful decorative garden solutions.

Meet the owners: Ewa and Piotr Szulc, tending their garden with love.   

The garden I have visited last week embraces old trees and XIV century defence wall in Ińsko (close to my heart), geographically it’s a small city in Western Pomerania, Poland.

Large stones are part of natural landscape in this area.

See the old stone wall from XIV century in the background?

When the old sick tree had to be cut down, it naturally stayed in the garden as planters and benches. 

Stone wall.

The beautiful background for the joyfull hollyhocks is made by Metasequoia glyptostroboides - an awesome tree.

Bird bath embraced by hollyhocks. 

And we come to the hearth of this garden - edible gardening. Here squashes in the pots. If you give them proper soil and proper natural food, they will grow expotentially.
There are about 38 squashes growing in this garden - majority in planters.

Tomatos in the planters.There is about 60 of them growing in this garden.

Nasturtium and strawberries.

Tomatos above (next pot) and herbs (mint and chives) in the containers below.

Next tomato container.

These squashes grow happily on the compost heap.

Nasturtium is edible as well (leaves and flowers) - this time growing on the decorative bed.

I love this idea - using fence as support for growing tomatos. Next to it there is a rose with pink flowers... 

... and on the bottom of the tomatos squashes and pumpkins... and Dyzio - a family member checking whether everything is fine.