Browse Tag: water garden

Shade garden with gravel path

July Garden Update – dealing with drought, building a lotus bog, and adding a focal point

How is it late July already?  Between a new role at work, family in town, and various gardening activities, I’ve been slacking on the blog posts.  Don’t judge me too harshly, though; while I’ve not been writing, I haven’t forgotten about you — I’ve been out touring gardens, working on my garden, and taking lots of pictures (which means I should have plenty of awesomeness to help us get through winter next year!) But for now, I thought I should share a mid-summer garden update.   Continue Reading

Japanese Maple in a woodland garden in front of waterfall

Beginning to Naturalize the Water Garden with Fish and Plants

A backyard waterfall, stream, and pond is a water feature.  When you add plants, it becomes a water garden.  When you add plants and fish, it becomes a magical place you could sit by all day if you didn’t have to do adult things like go to work and buy groceries.

Alas, I am neither independently wealthy nor close enough to a store to qualify for any kind of delivery, so I do have to leave my oasis more than I would like to.  Now the last time you saw the water garden it was under snow and looking pretty darn empty — probably not what you would consider an “oasis” — so let me rewind a bit. Continue Reading

Coffee cup and water garden in April

A year’s progress in the garden

It’s easy to look at pictures in gardening magazines, Pinterest, and Instagram and feel a bit discouraged when you compare them to your own garden.   At least I feel that way — there’s a big gap between where my garden is and where I want it to be.  I still have a lot of plants to buy, work to do, and time to wait for young plants to mature.  But it hit me yesterday that I have only been on my gardening journey for one year — and I’ve made an incredible amount of progress! Continue Reading

When I Dream Daylily in bloom July

Easter (eye) candy for garden lovers

I don’t know where you are, but here in KC, Mother Nature is playing a cruel April fools’ day joke on us. It may be April,  but you wouldn’t know it from the weather outside.  As I write this, it’s 28° with sleet and snow falling from the sky.  What the heck?!? I got a glimpse of the Easter Bunny this morning and he was wearing a winter coat, hat, and gloves.  Sure hope those eggs didn’t freeze.

Luckily, the Easter Bunny brought me tulips and wine this year (my Easter Bunny is better than your Easter Bunny!) so I didn’t have to worry about frozen eggs.  What I do have to worry about is frozen plants: the low Tuesday night is supposed to hit 22°!  Remember all of those early-emerging plants I told you about last week?  I spent yesterday afternoon covering them with leaf mulch in hopes that they stay cozy until we get through this cold streak.

I think the best thing to do while we wait for this very un-springish weather to move on is distract ourselves with pictures of pretty plants and gardens, don’t you? Continue Reading

Waterfall into a stream as part of a backyard water garden.

My water garden dream come true

The year was 1999, and my brothers and I had a big task ahead of us: somehow convince my parents to fund and help us build a water garden at our house.

Okay, truth be told, my mom was on board —  it was really my dad we had to persuade.  I went into high-gear research paper mode, checking out all of the related books I could possibly find from the library and building out compelling argument backed up with a project plan.  Had it been a school assignment, I’m sure it would have been graded A+.  My brothers and I presented the idea to our parents;  our phenomenal presentation was met with, “We’ll think about it.”  Dang it. Continue Reading

Crocus Spring Beauty growth early March

Glimpses of spring

Happy March, my friends — we made it through February!  Though it is technically still “late winter,” we’re starting to see small hints that spring is just around the corner.  The Black-capped chickadees have started singing the two-note song that puts a smile on my face,  the daylight stretches into the evening a bit, and KC has seen some beautiful 60-degree days.

I’m starting to see tiny signs of life in my garden– while cleaning up sticks this weekend, I noticed that the Japanese Maples are covered in tiny buds.  Most are 6-12″ saplings, and I only permanently planted three last year–the rest I stuck in the ground, pot and all, hoping that they would overwinter.  It appears they all survived — score one for this newbie gardener! Continue Reading

Woodland garden bench - GardenTails blog

You never know where you’ll find gardening inspiration–or who YOU will inspire

I’ll never forget the moment I walked into Rick and Stephanie’s backyard.

My mom and I were on the annual KC Water Garden Tour, and their garden was one of the last stops on the itinerary for the day.  We were greeted out front by one of their young daughters, who guided us to the back gate.

Their house was in the middle of the suburbs, where you’ll generally find a patio, tidy landscaping, and/or a small flower bed.  On the water garden tour, you’ll generally see a pond and waterfall added to the standard mix.  As we walked around back, I expected to see just that — but instead we walked into the woodland garden that would inspire my gardening journey.

This was no ordinary suburban backyard. Continue Reading