Garden Photo of the Day

Creating a Vineyard and Garden

Wine grapes, roses, and more

Today’s photos come from Donald LaGrand.

I want to share with everyone the progress on my master plan layout of the gardens here in Somerset, California. The photos are from throughout the year.

We have a little over four acres of property, and two acres are being transformed into a massive garden layout. There’s a rose garden, a California native garden, a lavender garden, a rock garden, a butterfly garden, a hummingbird garden, and half an acre of Barbera grapes that we harvest every year and sell to the local wineries.

It’s been three years since we started this undertaking by establishing the foundation plants first, like the many trees we have planted. The 44 roses were planted bare root in February of this year. They were slow getting established, but once they were, they grew to 2 feet tall and produced many blooms.

It’s a labor of love, and the design is finally starting to show its beauty as the plants begin to establish themselves and are on display as you walk through gardens in the morning with a cup of coffee in one hand and a pair of clippers in the other.

Happy gardening everyone!

Some of the trees planted early in the development of the garden display their fall color.

Creative use of old stumps, turned into planters.

Rows of grapes, with wild buttercups blooming in the grass between them.

The roses are blooming already. They’ve been planted on a wide spacing so they’ll have room to reach their full, mature size.

Close-up of a flower from one of the rosebushes.

A rose loaded down with beautiful blooms.

grape vineyardGrapes ready to harvest!

grape harvestThe grape harvest, ready to be sold to local wineries.

autumn gardenAnother view of the garden, with the grapevines showing their autumn colors.

The beautiful orange flowers of lion’s ear (Leonotis leonurus, Zones 8–11)

 

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Comments

  1. User avater
    meander_michaele 12/23/2019

    Your commitment to your 4 acres and master plan has now entered the gratifying stage of vision becoming reality. That pictured bunch of ready to harvest grapes looks amazing...such a gorgeous color and so blemish free. Congrats on everything.

  2. User avater
    treasuresmom 12/23/2019

    Wow! Those grapes are amazing!

  3. Cenepk10 12/23/2019

    Hey .... You’re living my dream !!!!!!

  4. User avater
    simplesue 12/23/2019

    Its nice imagining being in this garden with a cup of coffee and clippers...and the smell of ripe grapes and roses! Such a beautiful thing to do with all this land!

  5. btucker9675 12/23/2019

    So beautiful! And the stump "planters" are so clever! Holiday Cheers to all!

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