Friday, January 28, 2011

Gardening in the Snow

Ever since we moved here my dream has been to create a sort-of-formal, raised -bed, mostly-perennial  garden outside our dining room window. Looking out, one would see drifts of colorful flowers in the foreground, then the large expanse of lawn (studded with cows grazing peaceably), and beyond, that the pastoral view.

Other projects have taken precedence the past two summers, so this garden hasn't happened yet, but for Christmas Rog gave me the promise of helping me build the garden this spring. (He knows the way to my heart!)

With each fresh snowfall I have been taking the opportunity to tramp a garden layout in the snow.  The raised beds will be contained by local Winona stone and there will be brick paver paths.  Tracking it out in the snow gives me a pretty good sense of how it will look from inside the house. This square plan looks a bit too geometric to me, but would be softened considerably by my eclectic gardening style.  I want to be able to expand the design in the future if I feel the need to plant more flowers!

What would you do? Your garden design ideas are welcomed. 

4 comments:

katiegirl said...

I think it looks great! It'll be very easy to expand if you wanted to a year or two down the road.

Rod R. said...

I would tend to not use geometrics. Raised rock beds would be great as well as pavers making divergent paths. The entry could be on the house side and "taper" inward. In my mind this would always invite you in visually.some small patches of lawn within the garden is nice too. My 2 cents

Susan said...

I've been really torn about the geometric layout idea. We have several inches of fresh snow today, so I can try tramping out another plan...

Rod R. said...

You might think about the raised beds for perrennials. We had some very tough and easy to grow greenery in raised beds of about 10 inches in hieght . They came up fine one year and the next ...nothing . I think raising them exposes the roots and bulbs to too much cold and they freeze out. works great for vegetables though.