The most spectacular garden I’ve ever seen.
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Holy carp, the videographers garden is incredible. So huge! I am a definite fan of plant collections, lol.
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How big a maintenance budget need to be for a garden like this?
How big a maintenance staff? -
That’s what I was wondering. There’s barely a weed in sight.
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Ditto here.
She mentions that she has a helper three days a week. I was thinking you'd need a multi-person crew to maintain all of that. And she has a lot of hardscaping that requires major effort to install. It's not like you could build those gravel paths by going to Home Depot and pitching a few bags of pea stone in the bed of your pickup truck.
Speaking of which, she did mention that she picked up a ton of plants when they were on sale at Home Depot...a woman after my own heart....
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Watering and weeding and deadheading would be a full time job.
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I finally watched the whole episode.
It was kind of fun that she didn't know the names of so many of the plants that she has in the garden. She seems to be a very intuitive gardener who is constantly adjusting things as the landscape changes over time. She may also have an experienced landscaper advising her on her plant selection.
Her plant choices are pretty classic for a shade garden in our area. I can understand why she favors hostas so much because they are so diverse and pretty much bulletproof. With all of the shade she has, they will look good for a long time (over a season and across years) with virtually no care. And you can divide them and populate new areas without having to spend money on new plant material. Astilbes, ferns...those are natural partners with the hostas. And the red Japanese maples give some color without blooms. Her experience with the maples that have dissected leaves mirrors mine; they seem to turn toes up kind of without notice after doing well for years.
She has so little sun. It's hard to work color into a shade garden. Not many wildflowers would do well in there as it's not a sunny meadow and she mentioned that a lot of the sun-loving plants were gradually eliminated as the shade canopy got denser as the trees grew. Despite that, I still saw roses tucked in here and there, along with some purple coneflowers and black-eyed Susans in somewhat sunnier areas.
I was not as much a fan of the ostrich ferns because I know how invasive they are. OTOH, I was very glad to see that she kept the native jack-in-the-pulpit. We used to see those in our woods in Door County.
Now I have to go back and look at the videographer's garden to see what that looks like...
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@Jodi said in The most spectacular garden I’ve ever seen.:
Watering and weeding and deadheading would be a full time job.
...for several people....
I would love to see it in person, but I wouldn't want to be responsible for it!
I have a low maintenance yard of a quarter acre with a lot of the same kinds of plants she has, and I have trouble keeping up with things at times. She's only been there 18 years and she has re-worked what was there into an amazing place.
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I have to believe that garden is irrigated, especially the lawns. No one is going to keep up with hand watering that yard.
The water bills must be mind blowing!
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@Jodi Did you see what they started with?
Dead flat and all scraped to bare dirt.
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@Steve-Miller said in The most spectacular garden I’ve ever seen.:
have to believe that garden is irrigated, especially the lawns. No one is going to keep up with hand watering that yard.
Definitely automated watering. She showed a sprinkler that was mostly hidden in a shrub that was obviously connected to an in-ground system. And she mentioned some drip irrigation she installed around other plants.
OTOH, you'd be surprised how long a shaded yard like that can go without too much supplemental watering. The plants she has selected are pretty hardy souls. The hostas under my maple tree hardly miss a beat, even in semi-drought conditions. Heck, I dug up a bunch of them in the spring and left them on a tarp in the back of the yard all summer, only watering on rare occasions. I just planted them all up in pots and they look great.
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@Steve-Miller said in The most spectacular garden I’ve ever seen.:
A landscape designer friend of mine once told me that a landscape should never contain more than 7 different plants. Any more and it’s no longer a landscape - it’s a plant collection.
If it’s variety you want, take a look at the host’s YouTube. Her garden is much larger and appears to feature at least 3 of whatever she could find that will grow in Wisconsin.
Lots of annuals.
I would never hire your landscape designer friend. Only 7 different plants? What is even the point of gardening?
I will not look at the host's youtube. I cannot stand her mewling repetitive adjectives!
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@Steve-Miller said in The most spectacular garden I’ve ever seen.:
@Jodi Did you see what they started with?
Dead flat and all scraped to bare dirt.
Which video did you start with? She started the channel like 10 years ago and was doing small planter and arrangement projects. Trying to figure out where the Big Dig starts....
Pretty amazing subscriber base. Almost 2M.
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@pique said in The most spectacular garden I’ve ever seen.:
@Steve-Miller said in The most spectacular garden I’ve ever seen.:
A landscape designer friend of mine once told me that a landscape should never contain more than 7 different plants. Any more and it’s no longer a landscape - it’s a plant collection.
If it’s variety you want, take a look at the host’s YouTube. Her garden is much larger and appears to feature at least 3 of whatever she could find that will grow in Wisconsin.
Lots of annuals.
I would never hire your landscape designer friend. Only 7 different plants? What is even the point of gardening?
I will not look at the host's youtube. I cannot stand her mewling repetitive adjectives!
Turn the sound off. You’ll like the garden.
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@Steve-Miller No, I will try to find the video - I just picked a recent one - really amazing. I didn’t watch much of the first video you posted (I also found that garden pretty boring
) but the host’s voice didn’t really bother me, and for sure didn’t bother me in her own videos. But maybe I was just so enamoured with her plantings I didn’t notice it! -
Here’s a glimpse of what they started with.
Link to video -
Holy carp, I just started down the rabbit hole that is her youtube channel. It makes me miss living someplace with a decent growing season - ours is so short here. Last frost about June 20th. And you can easily get your first one (or snow) in September.
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@Jodi said in The most spectacular garden I’ve ever seen.:
I just started down the rabbit hole that is her youtube channel.
No kidding. Me, too.
Plus I'm finding all these videos (not her channel) about growing potatoes and other vegetables using some very interesting techniques and "ingredients". I'll start another thread and post a few there.
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@Jodi said in The most spectacular garden I’ve ever seen.:
Holy carp, I just started down the rabbit hole that is her youtube channel. It makes me miss living someplace with a decent growing season - ours is so short here. Last frost about June 20th. And you can easily get your first one (or snow) in September.
^^^^ This. Plus its so very arid here. I would love to be able to grow roses again.
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I watched her September tour.
Link to videoAmazing garden. Guess it helps they have outbuildings and tons of space to store materials. And a greenhouse
Having a Bobcat and other equipment doesn't hurt either.
About Garden Answer and Laura:
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@Jodi said in The most spectacular garden I’ve ever seen.:
It makes me miss living someplace with a decent growing season
Flowers or veggies or both?
I picked up a copy of this book years ago, but never really got into off-season gardening. Maybe it's time to revisit it.
https://www.amazon.com/Year-Round-Vegetable-Gardener-Matter-Where/dp/1603425683/ref=sr_1_1?sr=8-1
I'm sure there's tons of stuff on YT, too...
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
