PAXI Wrote: I'll do my best to accomodate. First, let me explain that these gardens are just in their "infant" stages, and are far from complete. I'm sure I'll wind up moving trees around a little, and the rocks, companion plants, etc. are no where near complete. I do like an informal feel to things, and I like plants to touch each other and inter-mingle, just as they do in nature, so I have a tendency to space closer than normal. I have a lot of pictures, so I will breeak this up into several posts. As always, criticisms or suggestions are welcome. This is the time, since I'm just getting started with most of these garden areas. AREA 1 - Center Island. My circular driveway creates a natural 'island', which contains several mature tulip poplars, dogwoods, and hickories. I've added raised beds, large rocks, and several evergreens. These include azaleas and rhododendrons, Picea abies 'pendula', picea pungens 'Blue Globe', and Cedrus deodara 'aureum'. All the Japanese Maples in this area have just been planted. Shots one through three show 1. A wide angle view of the whole island; 2. and 3. close up of some of the maples just planted. 4.) Anoter wide angle view. I've put a pink bar above each maple, which I know are somewhat hard to see (I'm not much of a photographer). The cultivars are, listed left to right: A.p. 'Komachi hime' A.p. 'Shaina' A.p. 'Mikawa Yasubusa' A.p. 'Rugose' A.c. 'Sunny Sister' A.p. 'Shishigashira' A.j. 'Vitifolium' A.p. 'Twombley's Red Sentinel' A.p. 'Herbstfeur' A.p. 'Beni maiko' A.p. 'Koshibori nishiki' A.p.d. 'Watnong' A.p. 'Aka shigitatsu sawa' still left to plant on the far side are: A.p. 'Hinata yama' A.p.d. 'Germaine's Gyration' I'll post pics of other areas as separate posts to keep things manageable.
my garden is like your picture, only much smaller: mainly filtered light through a canopy of tall oaks without much full sun. I have drifted towards APs with more spring interest. My main question is about the spacing as you mention. how far are those trees apart? how far are you trying to keep from the big oaks? I am alternating dwarf with the larger trees to get in a few more (I admit to being greedy in this regard!).
AREA 2 - Front Walk. Between my front sidewalk and the house is my oldest garden. When I added onto the house in 2000, I preserved the only JM in that space, which is the A.p. 'Crimson Queen' by the little pond. The Easter Freeze of 2007 almost destroyed it, and I lost about 2 ft. of leader and all the small to medium branches. Happy to say it is making a gradual comeback! It is one of my favorite trees. Some of these pics are a little hard to decipher because of the falling leaves. Shot #1.) A wide angle view of most of the bed. There are 10 JMs in this bed - one in a pot by the steps, which you can't see. 2.) A shot taken this spring showing the walk. 3.) A shot taken this spring showing the other side of the walk. There is only one JM in this bed, which is A.p. 'Aocha nishiki'. and 4.) A shot from the far side of the bed looking towards the house. I've marked the JMs with a red line above or an arrow, except for the Sangu Kaku, which is obvious on the left. The cultivars are, listed left to right: A.p. 'Sangu Kaku' (far left) A.p. 'Akita yatsubusa' (out of sight, see arrow) A.p. 'Crimson Queen' A.p. 'Burgundy Lime' (in a pot beside the steps) A.j. 'Junihitoe' A.p. 'Windover' (dwarf) A.p. 'Chishio improved' (bacground) A.p. 'Seigen' (foreground) A.p. 'Shojo nomura' A.p. 'Seiryu' (out of sight to the right - arrow) AREA 3 - Studio Garden. This area is in front of my small studio/garden house/tool storage shed. Pics are: 1.) To the left of the door is a small bed. Right now just one tree, A.p. 'Sharp's Pygmy' and a couple of conifers, including Pinus mugho 'Pumilio' 2.) To the right is a small 'island' bed, and this contains an Azalea, perrennials, bulbs, a Picea mariana 'nana' drawf spruce (2ft at maturity), and five JMs. In order, left to right, these are: A.s. 'Garden Glory' (in front of the wall) A.p.d. 'Ebony' (hard to see, but you can see the white tag) A.j. '6910' A.p. 'Kamagata' A.p. 'Kogane sakae' In addition, there is a 7ft. A.p. 'Shigarami' on the back corner of the studio, just out of sight.
Paxi, The spacing varies, but I don't get too hung up about placing them near a large tree. It really depends on the effect I want and the type of tree I'm planting. I have a 4 year old A.p. 'Abigail Rose' planted at the very base of a huge Oak. Its between two main root butresses, where it will be well protected. On the other hand, my A.j. 'Vitifolum' is planted about 15 ft. away from my large tuplip poplars, because they have shallow roots and would compete with the JM. In my woods I've obeserved huge trees growing right next to each other, and sometimes the effect is amazing. Plants are completely adaptable, given enough moisture and light, so I think its more important to concentrate on the look than on preconcieved rules about spacing. Most of my trees are spaced from 4ft (between dwarf varieties) and 15ft apart. I don't hesitate putting a dwarf tree 4ft away from another tree that will get large. My 'Herbstfeur' in the center island is an example, I have an A.p. 'Sekimori' that I'm going to plant near its base and let cascade down the side of my raised bed. I have to find some cool rocks to throw into the mix first, but I love that effect of having an upright tree "enveloped" at the base with something feathery and lush like ferns or a weeping JM. The rocks are the crowning touch (I think I love rocks amost as much as JMs). In the larger beds the plan is to layer the trees, with larger trees in the back shrinking down to dwarfs in the front. Exceptions are the variegates, which I'm planning to put strategically in the shadiest spots. One thing that really helped is I made a 'light map" of the garden. I took my digital camera out into the garden and put it on a tripod early in the morning. I then took a series of photos that comprised a 360 degree view of the space. It took about 7 or 8 shots to make a complete circle. I carefully noted reference points for each shot, so when I swiveled the camera I could take other photos with the exact same view. Then every hour for that entire day I came out and made another set of 360 degree shots. Later, I organized the pictures so that all the shots from a particular view were grouped together. This gave me a "time lapse" look at how the light played across that part of the garden. So I can flip through the photos and see how the light changes from 8AM til 6PM. This has proved invaluable in my garden planning. I'm also a firm believer in a good set of pruners, and plan on shaping and managing the size of my trees in all of these beds. Except for a few that I WANT to get huge (Vitifolium, Herbstfeur, Omato, Oshio beni, etc.), all will be controlled by pruning. Done right, the results are completely natural looking, and I wind up with a garden that looks just the way I want it to. Hope this helps!
AREA 4 - Woodland Border. This is the largest bed yet, and I'm still getting the top soil hauled in and spread. You can see several mounds of it covered in plastic to keep it from washing down-hill in the rain. I've included four different views, starting with a shot at the left, and then to the right, then from each end. You can get an idea of the scale from the wheelbarrow. This bed is probably 85 feet long and 10-15ft wide. Hopefully I'll start planting later this week. My latest task is to prune the big woodland trees behind it so there aren't any low-hanging limbs. Those are the types of chores you don't want to do later when you have a bunch of ornamentals planted underneath. This bed gets morning sun, with a large part of it getting full sun til 2PM. It will have a fair number of dwarf conifers planted in and amongst the JMs, and of course, more rocks!!
AREA-5 Stone Walls. This past winter I started building some stone walls with the help of my neighbor, who was out of work. This is all dry-laid stone work - no mortar. I would guess these walls are about 125 feet from the house. The area just behind and to each side of these walls will be heavily landscaped with JMs. Pictures: *somehow I got the first two pics reversed! Start with pic #2 2.) "Entrance" to my place. The areas on each side before you get to the walls have been cleared and will be landscaped. 1.) Looking back the other way down my drive once you pass the walls. 3.) East wall. Conifers are Pinus contorta, Picea pungens 'Montgomery', Thuja occidentalis 'Gold Thread'. Acer palmatum is 'Kasagi yama'. 4.) Closer view showing 'Kasagi yama' 5.) West wall. Conifer is Cerdrus atlantica 'Glauca pendula'. Acer palmatum is 'Crimson Queen'. 6.) Closeup of West wall and 'Crimson Queen', which was a damaged plant I rescued from a local nursery. 7.) View of future pond. This shot is taken from the West wall and shows where we've begun clearing for a pond. This actually was a cow pond about 75 years ago, and my yard was a field. 8.) View of the pond from the other side. The pond will have a waterfall coming off the hill, lots of rocks, dwarf conifers, and of course, dozens of JMs!!!
AREA 6 - Pergola. Just to the left of the West Wall is the entrance to one of two hiking trails that meander over my property. I'm building another wall there, along with a pergola, stone walk, and of course, there will be maples! The pergola is actually visible in the last picture of the pond area in my previous post. It's stained black, so its hard to see. Pictures: 1. thru 3. These show the pergola and the wall to its right under construction. 4.) Wider view showing some stone steps under construction. These will lead you down from the driveway level to a stone path. The large rock just visible on the right is the rock visible in other pictures of the West wall. These steps are just 10 feet from that wall. 5.) View of the stone steps looking the other direction. You can see the East wall just across the driveway. 6.) Shot going down the stone steps and onto the flagstone walk that leads to the pergola. My neighbor and a friend helped me out on this one. Great kids, by the way! 7.) Shot looking from the pergola back to the steps. Across the driveway you can see where we've been clearing out the brush. Added some new boulders too! 8.) More recent view down the driveway. You can see the new cleared areas and boulders. We installed water lines and electrical conduit under the drive and throughout all these areas. Watering is critical for JMs! We have a drought every summer here, although you can't tell it from these pictures. 9.) Shot from the driveway that includes the pergola, wall, stone steps and flagstone walk. To the far right you can see the start of the West wall. This picture shows their justapositions more clearly. LOTS of room for JMs!! :-)
Krautz, Thanks man! What you're seeing here represents about 60% of the area I have available to plant maples. In addition to these areas, there's the rest of the yard behind the Studio, which is bordered in woods just like the others, another large area to the right of the studio, the area in back of the house, and just recently another huge area opened up. I had my power lines buried, and they had to cut a wide swath through the forrest up to my house (see pic). Now I have an area about 200ft long and 20 ft. wide that is clear of trees. We put water lines all along this area too, so this will eventually become maple territory as well. This new area, combined with the areas along my drive, the stone walls, pergola and (future) pond will create an irrigated area about the size of a football field, although a little more square. I envision a "maple walk" all through this space, with paths connecting all the various garden areas. Combine this with the island bed, woodland border, studio gardens, areas beyond the studio and the back yard, and I probably have 2 acres suitable for maple gardens. Of course, I have a tremendous amount of work left to do to get there, but that's half the fun. Hopefully in 3 to 5 years I can be finished. Then, of course, I'll think of another area to add maples to, and the process will never stop!! LOL!!
thanks for sharing today. you should think about a small blog detailing the whole process with pics over time, not unlike barbaras great page: http://mapledia.blogspot.com/
Cool link, Paxi! I did do a Picasa diary of my stone wall constructions, but a blog may be a better idea. Thanks. Picasa Stone Wall Project http://picasaweb.google.com/vincent.doug/StoneWallConstruction# Pergola and Wall http://picasaweb.google.com/vincent.doug/RuinedWall#
Ammazza che bello!!!(roman expression)che fico!(another roman ex.) wonderful garden!!with beautiful project brava Kait ciao
K4, Great selection of plants and some wonderfull stone work. I am sure that in 3 to 6 years that these spaces will be even more beautiful. I remember back when I started some of my garden areas and people commented that all I planted was sticks and was I going to plant any normal plants. Now that some of the gardens have grown in, I don't get those questions anymore. Great job. Ed
