Looks good, especially your fence covering with clematis, I guess. (come on houzz, can't we have "clickable to see large version" pictures?)

Favorite feature is the cute kitty in the first pic! He looks so intent.

Aside from that, the 2nd photo is wonderfully rich. It sure is fun to watch a garden take shape over the years. Nice work!

Many of my befores are on film, so I can't easily post those, but I found a few.

Here's the most recent garden project. Before was just a slope of daylilies and Centaurea to hold the steep slope from an old river terrace along the back of the house with a viburnum and a dogwood behind the Viburnum. Spring 2013

Building the bed early summer 2013- a layer of manure, a layer of cardboard, a layer of wood shavings, then an edging of black plastic eventually with a line of patio block along the inner edge.

Late July 2014 during a lull in blooming, but one of the few photos I have from a similar angle.

Isn't it fun to look back on the changes/improvements you've made?! We bought this house 16 years ago, did a fairly major renovation, and then turned our attention to the garden. The property here is ~1/4 acre in size and it's now all garden! I've run out of room to add new beds.... It would be nice if Houzz allowed us to post pictures from photo-hosting sites because some older pictures have been lost from my computer(s) over the years due to hard drive failures, but they still exist on my photo-hosting site. But here are a few from the front garden over the years:

The house as we bought it in 1999:

Two years later - after the renovation and some tentative planting along the driveway to test out the soil (god-awful clay!)

Removing the rather scruffy spruce the following year to make way for a garden bed:

Somewhere to start...!

Three years later:

Five years ago with the 'moat bed' in place at the edge of the ditch but the basic layout and color scheme of the main bed pretty much the same as initially established although specific plantings changed over time. On my photo-hosting site I have a version of this picture with markings indicating planned additions and deletions - most notable the planned addition of an iron tuteur by the intersection of the main path and the cross-path on the left.

By this point I was getting nervous about DH venturing onto the garage roof to take overview pictures! So there are no recent ones of the same view! Pictures from across the road - which is now my 'record-taking' picture spot - don't have quite the same impact :-) From last June and September:

Those pictures sort of sum up the 15 years of gardening here :-) The backyard and the sideyards went through extensive changes as well but I don't have many of the pictures on this computer.

Nice jobs, you guys!

Favorite feature is the cute kitty in the first pic! He looks so intent.

He is still with us, soon to be 16 years old. He has always been an ever present fixture in my gardening routine. I will miss not seeing him outside with me when he is finally gone as our other 2 kitties are strictly indoors.

Thanks for the pictures. Please keep'em coming!

I really enjoy these "before and afters." They show what gardeners can do when they set their mind to it. Nature helps out a little bit, too. :)

I also really enjoy "before and afters". I think having seen ones posted on GW in the past gave me at least a bit of vision in terms of what I needed to think about big picture, rather than only looking at what individual plants look like when I buy them. I am now more likely to think about ultimate size, foliage combinations, and use of short-lived plants to fill in gaps until the larger plants fill in.

Here's another set of photos, this one at DH's shop.

The end of winter after one growing season in March 2007, looking south from the landing in front of the entry:

and looking north at the same garden, toward the entry.

Same bed in early winter of 2012, looking south.

and the same bed in spring 2013

and with the edging complete October 2014

NHBabs - I'm wildly jealous of your ability to grow rhodos - and all the space you have! :-) I can 'see' rhodos here in several places but they will not grow in my neutral-to-alkaline clay soil (believe me, I have tried....!) although they will grow in several neighbours' sandy soils. Do you have pictures of some of those bed from further back (so more of the overall setting is visible....) when the rhodos are in bloom? If so, I'd love to see those....

Woody - The biggest problem with fairly unlimited space is knowing when to stop . . . I think I have pretty much reached my limit for being able to maintain what I have planted now. DH does the mowing and tree maintenance, but I do all the gardening. Having grown up with slightly alkaline clay, I love being able to grow rhodies well, though my cold temperatures do restrict what varieties I can grow. I grow Rhododendrons for their evergreen foliage for late fall and early spring interest as well as for their flowers; I can get a fair amount of contrast with color and size as well as with conifers. In the fourth photo above there are two Rhododendrons blooming, the red 'Nova Zembla' just opening and the deciduous yellow 'Narcissiflora' just ending. Here's a photo as one drives up (May 10, 2013), with regular screaming magenta PJM rhodies on the left (there is also an Olga Mezitt, a lighter pink, and an R. maximum 'Independence', an almost red, in that bed for later flowering and foliage contrast) and the naturally small PJM group 'Checkmate' in the bed to the left of the shop entry which was shown just above yours. Where and how I plant here is controlled by DH's work and need to access certain areas, and some of my purpose in planting is to distract from or soften the appearance of some of the outdoor work areas. There are several more rhodies planted further along in the large bed that sweeps along the left side of the photo that are just visible through the trees, and out of sight there are others both on the far side of the large bed of native trees along the left as well as in the large mixed shrub/perennial bed out of sight to the right of the shop. This time of year has a lot of pink since that's what's available, and even though it isn't my favorite color, I do like how it complements the spring green.

This is what I see when I pivot about 120 degrees to the right, just off the right end of the shop, taken on the same day. for this photo, I am standing at the base of the dirt pile in photo 2, and this bed starts right about where the white trailer is parked. Needless to say, we have done some opening up of the scruffy grown-up pasture that was here when we bought our place, though the vast majority of our land is still wooded.

NHBabs - If I was younger and healthier, I'd be happy to deal with the don't-know-where-to-stop-with-unlimited-space problem :-) I'm the opposite of you in that I grew up in an acid soil environment so there are a number of things I hanker for that just won't grow well here - blueberries are another big one on my wish-I-could grow list. Interestingly, the rhodos where I grew up (east coast of Canada) were the deciduous rhodoras (Rhododendron canadense) http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/rhododendron_canadense.shtml They lined the path to the lake - we hadn't planted them; they just grew there naturally. In fact, we didn't know what their name was - they were just the bushes that bloomed pretty pink in spring! I was 40 and long since moved away from where I grew up before I saw them in a woodland nursery and learned their name! I tried desperately hard to get them to grow here but they refused :-( This is where I grew up - it's almost unrecognizable to me now with all the houses added and barns etc. gone:

A 'shop' sounds intriguing - what is made there...?

Was the alkaline clay you grew up with in zone 5-ish, or in a warmer zone? If in a cool zone, do you have any favorite plants to recommend that I try....?

If I was younger and healthier, I'd be happy to deal with the don't-know-where-to-stop-with-unlimited-space problem :-)

Me too, me too. We have a typical residential lot (about and eighth of an acre). Not to be greedy but I can envision being satisfied, in terms of perennial gardening, to move up to say...a third of an acre.

>If I was younger and healthier, I'd be happy to deal with the don't-know-where-to-stop-with->unlimited-space problem :-)

Me too, but I am not young by anyone's definition, though still OK health-wise other than some creakiness . . . My energy levels set my limit, and I am a fan of the tractor for moving large quantities of materials.

Woody, We do have 3 wild rhodoras here as well as uncountable wild blueberries, so it sounds like similar growing conditions. I grew up a couple miles from Lake Erie in Cleveland, so zone 6 (though it's been down to -11 this winter, to my mom's dismay.) I grew up in a family that weren't gardeners, so my influences included some really nice gardens in my neighborhood and some beautiful public gardens. The woody plants that stand out in my memories from when I was a kid are Magnolias, Japanese maples, elderberries, dogwoods, spicebush (Lindera), weeping cherries, roses, redbuds; nothing particularly unusual. According to DH, the shop produces garden mulch with a waste product of turned wood bowls. ;-)

NHBabs - it does sound like you have similar growing conditions to those that shaped my early gardening experiences! Other favorites from my youth include bluets, starflowers, bunchberries, serviceberries, chokecherries, and hackmatack (tararack/American larch) trees. Do you have those on your property too? (The only ones on that list that I currently grow here are serviceberries and a chokecherry.) As can be seen in the Google Earth image I posted above, spruce and fir were, by far, the dominant trees. Deciduous trees were limited to things like poplars, birch, willows, the apple trees in the orchard, and a lone surviving elm in one pasture!

It must be handy to have a DH with the equipment and skills to do good quality woodworking! Does he create things for your garden too (aside from mulch!)? At grandpa's farm (where I grew up) there was a workshop attached to the horse barn that had a wide range of Victorian-era woodworking equipment. It belonged to grandpa's father who was a cabinet-maker. The lathes and such were very ornate things, most of which grandpa didn't know how to use. I sometimes wonder what happened to them when my uncle sold off stuff before selling the property. For a woodworker, those tools would have been fascinating; for most people they'd just be junk to dispose of!

Pardon me for indulging in a bout of nostalgia :-)

Magnolias, dogwoods, and redbuds (two white ones....) I do grow here. I tried a Lindera but the only place I had room for it was in shade - too much shade obviously because it wouldn't grow for me. I tried elderberries too but viburnum seemed to do better so the elderberries gradually got replaced. Japanese maples are definitely on the list here, although a few have not survived winters. Weeping cherries are pretty; I haven't tried any here though. I do have a yen to try one of the University of Saskatchewan dwarf sour cherry trees but I don't have anywhere to put one - I need more space! :-) I always keep looking for new-to-me things that like the neutral-to-alkaline clay soil we have here....

So interesting and fun to see the before and afters. What a great topic.

rouge it is hard to believe you have only been gardening for 6 yrs! You got bitten badly by the garden bug lol! Really like the expansion of your beds and the plants in them. Gee, if you want more room you could always eliminate more lawn. Any plans to do so?

NHBabs It is great having space isn't it? From the looks of it you will only stop until you see another must have plant. Then you will need a new bed to accommodate it because you will think oh, wouldn't this go well with...You must not have too much weeding/watering to do since you mulch. Such nice gardens and views you have!

woodyoak That is quite the transformation over the years. You must have been just a little nervous when that spruce was being removed after such a remodel.

I can understand not wanting your DH going up on the roof any more. I think the overhead is a fabulous shot but your current pic taking spot is as well. Your gardens are beautiful! We are so critical of our own gardens and how they are viewed. I know I am.

Here is half of the garden showing over 10 yrs. ago. The goal was to do the border then fill in the centre.

New bed leaving room for the growth.

2 years later

Then from farther back.

This is a lovely thread. Thanks, Rouge. It's amazing how much that garden has filled in and expanded in a relatively short time. Do you have any before and after photos of other beds?

I remember watching Woody's garden develop over time as she built it, but seeing that time fore-shortened is impressive.

Peren.all, such a great range of foliage and color! Not having to mow that expanse of lawn, and having all those flowers instead is wonderful! (Can you tell I am not a fan of grass?) Nice to see the progress from just a border to something that makes me think of a botanical garden. How did you build your granite dust(?) paths to keep them so tidy, or do they take a lot of maintenance?

I agree that this is a good thread! I like seeing 'big picture' pictures that provide background context for the horticultural eye-candy/detail :-)

Rouge - what struck me about the pictures that you posted to start the thread is that the first one is the creation on someone who gardens (casually by visiting the local garden center in spring....), while the second is the creation of a gardener who is more intimately familiar with the plants and is aiming to create more complex pictures, exploring more of their potential.

peren.all - beautiful garden! Clearly you have lots of space and great growing conditions! What grows on that arbour/pergola structure visible in the last picture? I actually like the contrast of the lawn vs the border in that first picture. If you've got the climate (adequate rainfall), I think a lawn is a great 'negative space' to balance the 'positive space' of the border. Is there any lawn left? (I have a strong bias on this issue :-) since a rectangular lawn is a defining feature of our backyard garden!) Since the backyard is in substantial shade, the grass is weak. Plus we don't water it so in dry summers (i.e. our usual summers!) it's not a high-quality lawn, but the uniform green space is important to the serene and quiet feel of the green-and-white themed backyard garden. These pictures are a few years old now but the backyard garden still looks pretty much like this:

Looking NW from near the end of the south alley:

Looking NE from near the shed:

The garden would have a very different feel in the absence of the shaped lawn. People tend to find it a bit unexpected - especially in comparison to the more colorful front garden - but it's our favorite garden space and is the one we view most often (while hanging out on the back porch or looking out the living room window - the bow window in the picture above).

Thank you NHBabs In this part of the yard it made sense to eliminate the lawn completely.

In the second pic on the left you can see another section of garden under way, still partially covered in black plastic to kill the grass with part of it dug.

I use an edger to make the slot in the grass to hold the 6" roll top edging. It is much easier to work the edging with the firm earth to hold it. I then use large rocks to hold the edging in place on the garden side and then fill the walkway with the stone dust (granite) 4-6" deep directly over the grass. I pull the edging up to the appropriate height as I proceed. Garden forks come in really handy during the process for holding the edging in the right position and at the proper height. The edging can be unwieldy if you don't show it who is the boss but it is an economical way to do large areas.

I have not rolled the walkways so I do get some plants that seed into it but when the stone dust is wet it is very easy to dig or scuff unwanted seedlings out. Hope I did not tell you way more than you wanted to know lol!

The pictures I am seeing from you guys and gals are exactly what I was envisioning when I started this thread!

It's amazing how much that garden has filled in and expanded in a relatively short time.

It is even more accelerated than you might have thought? That is most of the plants you see in the "after" photo have been in the ground for a maximum of 3 seasons! (It is too bad that houzz doesn't have the feature to be able to zoom in or magnify a posted photo as you might appreciate more of the individual plants).

Of course being a gardener one does need to be patient but it has been my limited experience that one can have a wonderful perennial bed within 3 seasons. When one supplements with colorful annuals the spot can look beautiful even in its "youth".

Do you have any before and after photos of other beds?

Thanks for asking. I do but my organization of digital images is almost non-existent and so I have yet to find them. I will keep searching.

woodyoak - Thank you. Yes, I am blessed with beautiful loam that I add generous amounts of compost to when appropriate for what I am planting. I do also have a lot of space to work with.

Growing on the arbour are Actinidia arguta 'Issai', A kolomitka 'Arctic Beauty', Climbing Hydrangea, Lonicera 'Dropmore Scarlet', Rosa 'Henry Kelsey' Clematis 'Blue Angel', 'Jackmanii', 'Mme Edouard Andre', 'Mrs. George Jackman', 'Multi-blue', 'Nelly Moser' and 'Ville de Lyon'. 'Maidwell Hall' used to be but is now on an obelisk. 'Henryi' is one of my favorites and it decided it did not want to grow in that spot any more after being fabulous there for about 4yrs. I am not happy. I know you have a tremendous C. 'Henryi'. I put a Polygonum aubertii that grew very well but did not survive our winter.

I do have plenty of lawn still in other areas. It is difficult to see in the pics but the main stone dust walkways are almost 9' wide and the secondary walkways are over 4' thus creating the "negative space" that I agree is essential.

Love your backyard garden! It is very tranquil and the grass plays an important role in that space. I can understand and appreciate why you enjoy it so much.

peren.all - any pictures featuring that arbour in full....? That's quite a collection of things there... :-) How have the kiwis performed for you? I tried 'Issai' years ago and the best I can say is that it didn't completely die! :-) In 2013 I tried again, planting both it and an unnamed male pollinator on the fence in the north alley to replace the aging 'Harlequin' honeysuckle that was barely hanging on after a couple of difficult dry years. The kiwis survived last winter but I wouldn't say they were thriving last summer! After this tough winter too I'm not expecting much from them.

I like 'Henryi' and have several - but none I'd call tremendous at this point :-) I wonder if you're thinking of the white clematis in a picture I posted of the south alley? That one is 'Gillian Blades' which is very nice. I was disappointed in the two 'Henryi' on the iron arbour here last summer. Both were struck by wilt (as were several other that I've never had trouble with before....) I suspect a combination of winter damage and general weakness as I usually fertilize them in spring but forgot to last spring. The 'Henryi' that did the best was the one that grows into the Chinese wisteria 'tree' - the wisteria probably provided sufficient supplemental fertilizer :-)

Paths add so much to gardens I think - both from a practical and an aesthetic/atmosphere/ character point of view. But 9' is a very wide path! Is that because of the nursery business? Do you need to move equipment along the paths or provide ease of movement for higher volume of foot traffic? Do you have a nice collection of hoop houses tucked away somewhere in all that horticultural eye-candy?! I do wish Ottawa was closer....!

woodyoak - I will have to put up more than one pic of the arbour because the Kiwi 'Arctic Beauty' is so dominant. It is a fabulous grower and has produced fruit from yr. 2. Even cuttings produce fruit sometimes.

'Issai' was much slower to establish and last year was the first time it produced any fruit (2 very tasty little kiwis). This year I am hoping for more.

I really need to give my clematis a top dressing this year. 'Jackmanii' is a shadow of its former self.

Yes, the main walkways are wide enough to get the Bobcat in for mulch, compost or whatever else I need to bring in. Usually now I just pull a small trailer behind an ATV but the option is nice. When large groups come it is good to be able to accommodate and not have to walk single file. Mostly though it just fit my vision of what I wanted my garden to be (I have a practical side too lol!) and all the rest came later. I have 7500 sq. ft. of hoop houses.

I really wish we were closer too! We could have so much fun!

I will look for more pics but here are the Kiwi when they were a couple of years old A. a. 'Issai' is on the left, A. k. 'Arctic Beauty' on the right.

oohh! I want to go there! How far are you from Perth? I know someone there that would love to check it out (maybe she already has....?!) Can you tell us the name of your nursery? You said 'when groups come' - what sort of groups? local Hort. Societies perhaps?

I was looking for 'Arctic Beauty' kiwi but ended up with just a no-name male Actinidia kolomikta so it'll be interesting to see how well the color develops on it - assuming it survives and eventually thrives....! I was told that Issai, while self-fertile, produces better with a male pollinator - which is why I got the vine that is supposed to be a male (they were sold together), so I'm not expecting fruit from that one, just leaf color (hopefully) and stud service for Issai :-)

Well woodyoak I wish you would come! We are half an hour from Perth, so if your friend has not been here she certainly could. Great excuse for a road trip, visit your old friend and make a new one!? I am lucky to be supported by many local (and some from a fair distance) Hort. Societies and Garden Clubs and individuals. I would be happy to tell you the name privately since it would not be appropriate in this setting. We are all here to share gardening experiences, good or bad, learn from each other and enjoy.

The Kiwis should do well for you. Hardiness will not be an issue as you are warmer than I am. They will probably jump this year.

Here is a pic showing A. k. 'Arctic Beauty' and A. a. 'Issai' in 2013.

This is early June and 'Issai' has not finished leafing out at the top yet. Behind it you can see the Climbing Hydrangea. The Hydrangea took years to establish but is now a beast trying to take over!

There must be more than the 3 of us willing to share pics?

Check your messages.... :-)

If my kiwis don't survive/thrive, the issue wouldn't be hardiness; it would be less light and poor soil relative to what they really want! I'm always trying things in less-than-ideal situations to see just how flexible their needs are! And for vigorous things, sometimes that will help keep them in check....!

I do wish that Houzz would provide the ability to look at larger versions of the pictures.... What is the small/short shrub/tree on the far right?

Hi woody - That is a very old Mac Apple tree. It had never been cared for and it was twice as tall and not producing well. Over a number of years I have cut and pruned it to be a good producer and of a manageable size. It is wonderful to eat an apple that has never been sprayed with chemicals.

I still need a 14' ladder but at least now I can pick the fruit and give it a light pruning without risking life and limb. lol! I do not like heights.

I think we're talking about different plants... :-) I mean the short one with a left-leaning trunk, split into two branches at the top. The canopy reaches the edge of the picture on the right side. It sort of looks like it could be an euonymus grown as a tree-form perhaps...?

It sounds like you did an excellent job on reviving that apple! A Japanese neighbour has a really interesting 50-year-old flowering crab that is about 3' tall. That's a really neat tree (in both sense of the word...) but it doesn't fruit - or maybe he removes any fruit - I must remember to ask him about that.

BTW I'm curious... How many plants do you hold over the winter in the nursery, and when does active work start...?

That is the Apple tree we are talking about. It has a funky shape that would not be encouraged if you were starting with a young one and training it. Since it was mature when I came to it I had to work with it and I really like its shape.

If you look back at the original 4 pics I posted you will see another Apple tree in the second pic. It was massive. I had two choices, leave it alone to be a huge tree producing a few tiny apples covered in scab and scale or chop it waaaaaay back and have the tree fulfill its purpose. It was scary to cut that much from both trees but years later it has been so worth it.

I'm over wintering thousands, probably 12-13 thousand plants this year. That is normally what I over winter give or take a thousand or two. The plants are very well acclimatized to say the least. Anything new I bring in arrives the second week in April and even then it is nerve-racking playing a guessing game with the weather. It is a very inexact science and I watch the temperature like a hawk and go with my gut so to speak. This past spring was very cold so we had to go ahead with the potting and cleaning of the plants and keep recovering with the winter blankets and over wintering plastic until into May. It was a highly unusual year last year. Hopefully this spring will be "normal" and the plants will be uncovered in the first week of April. I will take a peak under the blankets tomorrow and I know there will be life showing on many. The time frame seems short but I have always been able to supply our wholesale customers prior to Mothers Day. We open May first here at the nursery. (I always get a few people in April that just want to cheer themselves up or make sure they get dibs on things that might sell out early) lol!

I like the shape of that little apple tree - it looks great in that bed; that it produces apples too would be icing on the cake!

I'm expecting another very cold spring here because Lake Ontario is very cold again after this year's nasty February. We had a cooler-than-normal summer last year because the lake was so cold after last winter. The lake never got a chance to warm up properly at all last year. So I'm pretty sure spring will be nasty here - and no flowers on the wisterias again this spring I expect :-( What exactly is a 'winter blanket'? I wondered whether there was some sort of special protection used for pots being wintered over....

Let's hope we get a nice spring because I am ticked with the weather. 2013 was a cool spring as well except that we had about 10 days over 25 degrees C late March/early April. The Kiwi 'Arctic Beauty' came into full flower mode despite me telling it to stop then of course we plummeted to -7. Needless to say we had no fruit in 2013. When spring 2014 came I thought we deserved a nice year but as I said we did not get it. Fall was short with very little color and then this winter has seemed dreadfully long. So I am wishfully thinking we all need a lovely season so that your Wisteria could have a chance to bloom and I don't loose my mind. LOL!

The winter blanket is white and very similar to a light thermal blanket that you would put on your bed. So it gets laid directly over the pots and then a specialized white plastic sheet gets laid over top of that. It simulates the insulating factor of snow. The idea is to minimize the fluctuation in temperature.

'peren', as I hope I have mentioned previously, your gardens look wonderful. They are clearly on a much larger scale than ours. Just like 'woody' I do hope I have the opportunity to see it in person!

Thank you rouge. In a garden I have always believed it is what a person does with their space and not the size of it that matters.

I hope you get to see it in person too!!! That would be beyond fun!

UPDATE:

Just came across a before picture and then I went out to snap the few years after, after picture:

love that color grouping rouge, may copy that for my shady area!

I have a confession...only the walkway and everything to the right is our property. But one spring I asked our neighbor if I could take on that strip (I was desperate to plant even if it was on someone else's land!)

Love that rouge!!! Soon (if not already) you will be driving around doing rogue acts of gardening where needed just to get your fix LOL!

What great neighbours you both are. I think most everyone here at some point has wished to be able to do what you have done. You made my day!

..I can relate to that rouge.... in my last garden I took on a strip of land adjoining mine, which belonged to a neighbour but they didn't want to do anything with it.... had old trees and shrubs removed and planted it all up the way I wanted.... non gardeners think we're mad.... they're probably right... you did a great job anyway...

rouge - you planted it, you take credit for it! your land or theirs :)

If only I could post pictures of my memories...not sure where my"before and early gardening years" pictures have gotten to. Pretty sure I have some somewhere.

this thread is SO inspiring. bumpity bump