Colorful Perennials - New Garden Design

I am very happy to show you today the colorful perennials garden located in Poland that I have designed 3 years ago.
You see it in almost autumnal version. The main idea was to make it interesting all year round and make it flowering from early spring till late autumn.

 Nothing tastes better than organic home grown tomatoes. Thank you Ania!

House and Garden in Algarve Before and After

Imagination and sensitivity enabling to feel the genius loci of the place may get you from the non interesting looking patch of land and an small old house to creating a paradise on Earth. What does it take to get you from there to today? What has the power of igniting it? Who whispers the solutions?

Whoever and whatever it is, I love the result.

Just have a look by yourself. The old photos were taken 15 years ago. In the parallel world of yours, what were you doing at that time?

I made my homework. I remember what I was doing in 1999. Being in Warsaw, I’ve met for the first time Danuta – a friend of mine that in April invited me over there. Life is plotting it’s scenarios in surprising ways. Imagine. The awareness that at the same time somebody else 4,000 km away was making important decisions, buying the land in Algarve (Portugal), starting rebuilding and construction work, laying out a garden, so I could spend important time here, doesn’t show that there is a greater plan for us?

More photos of this place you may see here.

Read more here Do It Yourself: Kitchens: Stunning Spaces on a Shoestring Budget (Better Homes and Gardens) (Better Homes and Gardens Home)

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.

Office Zen Gardening

Lot's of fun in the office today! Cos Klaudyna as her B'day present  got zen garden - little garden. Isn't it cute?

But now, everyone can pass over to the second floor and calm down while zen gardening in the office. Creating endless patterns restores tranquility and reminds what's most important.
Plato observed, “you can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation", so let us see what happens...

Happy B'day!