mettes pottery

Studiogarden...



4 years ago here used to be a large building. It was in a bad shape and had to be torn down. Here was no garden, just grass and black soil. A friend of my parents drew a plan for the area. There has been made a lot of changes in it but it still remains mainly as originally planned.

Normally when I think about garden design I think in terms of making outdor rooms with hedges or trees as walls. One room joining the next, creating corners and spaces for different purposes.
But there is another way of doing it... The idea is to let the living area extend to the closest part of the garden and let the rest of the garden mix with the nature ( which in Denmark is farmland ).

It can get very warm along the southern wall so the idea came to imitate the cozy life lived outside houses in Southern Europe under shades and pergolas with lots of climbing plants, seating areas and pots filled with flowers. And since this after all is not Greece, here will be a 35 squaremeter big wood framed greenhouse...

Last year we established the middle section between the building and the fields with a lawn and five different types of appletreees. Also the paving was made. There are still a lot of things to be finished at the building but we are slowly getting there.

This year it was finally time for planting some plants. We started with the herbaceous border outside the 3 big studio windows shown below.




The plants are all perennials and my mother is the mastermind. I basically told here about all my favorites, and she chose the ones that would fit to the conditions of the place and decided how many of each type we should plant.




Above are the main characters :

From left to right

Geranium macrorrhizum 'Ingwersen's Variety, May, june and juli, 30 cm.
Nepeta faassenii walkers low, June, Juli, august and september, 50 cm.




Above are the supporting characters:

From left to right:

Veronica gentianoides, may and june, 40 cm.
Helianthemum 'Elfenbeinglanz', May, june and july, 20 cm.
Allium schoenoprasum, June and July, 25 cm.
Ranunculus acris 'Multiplex', June and july, 60 cm.
Chelone oblique, August and september, 80 cm.
Oreganum vulgare 'Thumble's Variety', July and august, 20 cm.
Tradescantia virginia 'Breviacaulis', June, july, august and september, 50 cm.
Echinacea purpurea 'Alba', July, august and september, 60 cm.
Phlomis russeliana, July and august, 80 cm.

Below is the overall plan of the area...





My mother helping with the planting...




1½ months later it looks like this... Still a lot of the plants need to grow bigger and completely fill out the space making it pretty and very easy to maintain.