OH, this came out of a 90 Garden Challenge in England that was brought to my attention in the perennials forum. I am still going through it..... probably for awhile. LOL.

Oh my gosh, I've only looked at Suzette's garden so far. It demonstrates that if plants fail you the ornaments will not. I need more bird cages!

Thanks for the link to this site. Looks like lots of neat gardens from which to get ideas!

After playing outside on this beautiful Valentine's Day afternoon I've been relaxing by scrolling through the many beautiful English gardens on the link above, large and small.

Number 20 and those following it are especially nice. The pictures of the gardens preceding #20 were taken in winter; still beautiful with their bare and gnarled trees, meadows, ponds, pots and statuary, but most of us want to see the green trees and flowering plants pictured from #20 on.

This site is addicting-

Lisa

Lisa, indeed it is. I'm on Garden #29, The Old House.

I love the design of this area which is reminiscent of a simple knot garden, but framed by red bricks and square stepping stones rather than the short pruned hedges.

There are a great number of designs that could be laid out in that way.

I haven't gotten that far, but that is pretty neat. I can't help but think of all the pruning when I look at all the hedges most of them have.

Lisa

The weeping willows in the gorgeous Garden #35, St. Regis caused me to briefly consider trying to grow the beautiful weeping-willow-look-alike Shoestring acacia again. I lost it due to a LOT of rain which weakened it and then the 2 day Jan. 2017 freeze did it in ... sigh.

Dare I plant again-- in a more elevated and better draining location?

No, probably not.

This was my Shoestring acacia in 2015 ...

I am now on Garden #44; almost halfway through the 90 English gardens on the blog which were opened for charity. There's tons of inspiration to be had from scrolling through them!

I am using this rainy cold day to look at some of the gardens visited in January and was surprised at the number of species of Snowdrops. I thought what I have was it. Some shown were spectacular.

June, I was surprised like you about the Snowdrops. Gardeners over there collect different cultivars like gardeners here collect daylilies!

Yea, those Brits collect anything and everything. They are so much into the details than us americans.

I am just now up to #39. I am socked in the fog up here on my hill and 36º

Same here, Mara. Scrolling through scores of English gardens while socked in by wet, chilly weather almost makes me feel like I'm in England!

I'm loving their style; how tightly clipped hedges are interspersed with sprawling casualness; a look that English gardens are known for.

While our properties are not as large as these, if we wish, we can mimic the look using stones and bricks in place of hedges, and closely spacing dry land ornamental trees with tumbling native plants and exuberant grasses.

Dang, I'm even picking up the language, like "tumbling" and "exuberant" ... lol

I'm on Garden # 61, which shows how lazy I've been the last couple of days. Oh well, lets call it a "quest in gathering inspiration" ... :-)

I am glad it is not a race. I would be screwed. Maybe we could grow more of these plants if we had more of this weather. LOL. My shop is in the low 40's and I DO NOT WANT TO WORK. I am googling cheap pots right now.

Still scrolling ... isn't this a pretty view ...

I'll never achieve that look, but it makes me want to get outside and move things around.