Beautiful!

I like both..is the formal garden near the house with the natural garden further away?..how blessed for this gardener to have both..

nicholsworth, the two gardens are on opposite sides of the county. Still just the one gardener.

Jordan a lot of things in the first picture are weeds to most people. To me they are all plants.

Different plants, different bloom times. The tall flower meadow's peak bloom is mid-August through September, a late season show, weathers depending. Right now it is many shades of green sprinkled with blooming glitter.

Christopher..so this gardener's gardens are different properties..I'd probably be moving plants from one to the other! Lol..

The second garden features common mass market plants in an easily read arrangement. The first is an adventure of discovery. I want to wander the mountain.

"I'd probably be moving plants from one to the other"

nicholsworth rest assured that happens quite frequently. This week some Ligularia followed me home from another garden. I have also moved plants that refuse to grow in the wild garden to more civilized settings.

cecily the first garden is indeed an adventure in discovery. I often think college level botanists and entomologists could do course work studies in the wild cultivated gardens.

I’m with Cecily - I want to wander in that wild garden, and see what’s there.

Both are lovely, I prefer the 1st one for meandering and as an "experience."

The 2nd is more ordinary/typical, less interesting overall but more expected as a "garden."

I would want to come back in a couple of weeks to the 1st garden to see what's blooming, the 2nd one I would already know what to expect.

I like the wild garden. It looks like a living, breathing biome that supports all kinds of life. The second one is pretty but looks more like a movie set design to me.

The biome on a wet and cloudy day. A reality of my garden that is not noticeable at times, is that all of my sun, hence a bulk of the gardens, are in the electric utility easement. Everything else is forest.

It’s an easy decision for me: #2. However, if Christopher is including the woods as part of garden #1, then I choose that. Truth be told, I am biased to woody plants. Interesting topic.

Both are great, but I would have to say #2. To me gardening is imposing order to a space or area

I was reading in the eastern US, in the absence of logging and forest fires those utility easements, which they clear cut, are very important habitats for many plants and insects. cool

Just curious if you know which Ligularia you have, and if it does well in a shady or part sunny spot?

maackia sections of the forest are indeed part of the wild cultivated gardens. Two acres of forest at my mom's house next door are planted. That includes plenty of woody plants. There are even woodies hiding in all that summer lush in picture #1.

L Clark I would agree that gardening is about imposing order to a space. That order is certainly more discernable in picture #2. It becomes more apparent in picture #1 when you are actually in the space. Sister #2 came back from a spring wildflower walk in the park and said we need to make a garden like that here. I told her that garden already exists here. She didn't want to believe me. I took her deeper into the forest where the trilliums bloom to show her that garden. I just explained, the forest is messy. It just needs a good path and to be tidied up and the garden you are wanting will appear.

ulisdone I am not sure which Ligularia I brought home. I have never seen the flowers up close for a species ID. The leaves have a distinct reddish tint. They came from a property where they have self-sown to the point of invasiveness. They are all growing in dappled shade to low amounts of part sun. I planted them in my sunny meadow which still isn't full sun, but my shade is deep shade and even shade plants are happier with some sun.

In photo #1, the gardener has curated the plant selection imposing order since no blackberry brambles, multiflora rose, scuppernongs, Virginia creeper or Japanese honeysuckle have overtaken the space. I hope that Christopher dwells far enough from the suburbs that the plague of Bradford pears hasn't reached his biome.

cecily I have to confess to a good amount of Virginia Creeper and Poisoned ivy. They don't bother me as much as other vines because on the ground they don't grow up and on top of other plants like twining vines do. No Bradford Pear to worry about on my mountain. I do have to keep the neighbor's Burning Bush from invading. They are very shallow rooted and easy to pull for the most part, much easier to pull than the Spirea japonica my mother keeps planting all over. I follow behind her and pull a lot of them out.

The wild cultivated gardens are very much curated and a big part of that is removing the most aggressive plants, native or otherwise. Once you get rid of the thugs, they are slow to come back and easy to control as long as the ground is covered by other plants.

Added: I think it is more accurate to say - In photo #1, the gardener and nature have collaborated on the plant selection.

I am a self-confessed plant geek, but I much prefer garden #2. I am partial to flowers, fountains, and hardscaped paths. To me, garden #1 looks like an unkempt meadow. I am sure it is wonderful in its own way, but it's not my taste. It seems that the naturalized look is becoming prevalent, even at my favorite garden haunt, Longwood Gardens. I wonder if lower maintenance is a reason?

I would take no. 1 every time. It’s far more interesting, intriguing, adventurous and imaginative. No 2. is bland and unimaginative. The plants are standards and I hate crazy paving. The fountain is excessive and looks mass produced. Could it even be fibreglass? The best thing in no.2 is the natural rock, front left. Pity about the tacky solar lamp thing.

At the Beach, I am torn about making a declaration that the unkempt meadow is lower maintenance. The approach, the timing of chores and the desired result of the maintenance done are different. I spend more time per week 'working' in garden #2. When you add in the time the lawn mower dude spends there, it adds up. In garden #1, I may think I am working, but it feels more like strolling through a meadow head high and the lawn mower dude retired.

Floral that was a doozy of a critique of garden #2. Loved it. Yes, the new fountain is a massed produced resin thing. The top tiers of the original cement fountain literally exploded when I uncovered it from its winter wrap. The owners had to have a new fountain NOW. They went straight to their phones and ordered one delivered NOW. Clients making me garden shop for and with them on their tiny phones so it can all be delivered to them NOW is a new trend I could have a few words about.

I have been looking at those tacky solar lamp things for seven years. I don't even know if they work. Every time I walk by them I want to grab them and make them disappear. I'm not there at night and never felt authorized to eliminate them. Next visit I will do it just for you.

Thanks for the Ligularia info; I’m wanting some but don’t have a lot of room and all the rain here (next to Transylvania County rainforest) has all the present plants doubling in size in the past few weeks, so even less space for new plants…

For your further consideration, these pictures of the same gardens show they have other moods.

For the flower and color lovers, the wild cultivated gardens have that currently in other sections of the utility easement. That is Gooseneck Loosestrife (horrors) and Beebalm. Lots of Beebalm this year. Waves of bloom like this move through the garden from late March into September.

It only takes a small touch to conjure up the feeling of order on the far side of the roadside vegetable garden. This too will bloom.

Here things are looking a bit wild and fuzzy in the more polished garden. This garden is reaching the stage when a lot of homeowners start getting twitchy. The plants are all touching. Very little mulch is showing. The plants are getting so BIG. This is when people start getting afraid of their gardens and hacking them back. Mowing the lawn would solve everything of course.

Did you do the design of the garden in last pic? If so, I tip my gardening hat to you. Brilliant! It has what the first pic I looked at lacked. I don't want to go all Penelope Hobhouse on you, but I thought it needed some trees, shrubs, vines, etc. to tie it together. But again, I'm a poor soul who can't seem to see these finer gardening points.

Both gardens are WAY above your average garden!

Yes, they are. But we know that Christopher shouldn't be measured against 'average'. He's an artist.

That's why I keep jamming in so many damn plants…I need more to cover the soil!

maackia, yes, I did that. I think what you are describing is what Penelope would call layering. Both gardens have layers of herbaceous perennials, shrubs and trees. The residential scale of garden #2 makes it easier to show in pictures.

floral so many people gush over garden #2's pseudo Victorian pastiche it is refreshing to hear an informed critique. I always aim to give the client the garden they want. It is their garden not mine. The tacky solar lights are still going to disappear this week.