Tim Vojt sent in a series of photos showing his Ohio gravel garden through different seasons. He writes:
I was inspired by Beth Chatto’s gravel garden book to see what would grow in the neglected gravel parking pad behind my 1911 home. It had accumulated a weedy layer of sod well before we bought the house, so I stripped that off, cleaned it up, added stones and the sandstone column, and started planting. I’m constantly changing it up according to my whims and what does poorly or is over-exuberant.
What a great way to turn a difficult spot into a beautiful garden!
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Comments
I've followed GPOD for years. Why can't I see the comments?
comments were disabled while transitioning to the new website
Thank you, Jeff! No problems accessing the comments this morning, and I really like the look of the updated website.
Tim, your gravel garden through the seasons is very cool, and I love that you positioned it for optimum viewing from inside your home!
Many thanks!
Wonderful transformation Tim. It appears that garden your transformation has brought you "peace and ease" - as what the Chinese characters on your stone column say. I can see it will continually transform in the future just like your evolution as a gardener and look forward to seeing more photos as the years go by. Can't wait till tomorrow.
Thanks, Cherry and the reminder of the character translation is always welcome. I think Lillian translated it for me as well, but I don't have it committed to memory. I had ignorantly thought they were Japanese and the first two characters seemed to mean peaceful but I couldn't find the third, so I just called it 'jellyfish'.
I'm going to add a second small crevice section to the garden in the spring, adjacent to the new one I put in last year.
PS: the system just slapped my hand and told me to slow down; I was posting comments too quickly.
:(
Yikes, I’ve become a number instead of Linda on Whidbey?
Anyway, thanks, Cherry for the translation. I was just going to ask Tim , which, apparently wouldn’t have gotten me the right answer.
You're welcome Linda. Hope you can change your name to the correct one on your account profile.
Nice to see this and glad I caught it tonight rather than morning. It all looks super as always,,,,,,,,,,,you do know that this gravel garden has cost me a lot of money tracking down and buying plants like yours.
hmmm, with the new website I am tntreeman again from years ago
And I'm MadTreefrog. I tried to change back to ChrisN but it says someone already has that screenname!
Agree that Tim is a VERY BAD influence!
anyway, it's always a pleasure to see your garden.
Looks like you've hacked your account. I think I'm going to leave the old moniker on my account. I had forgotten all about it.
Happy to make other gardeners spend money. That way I don't feel so all alone!
LOL
Now that we are not using Disqus, I noticed I had to change my FG screen name, or no-one would know who I am.
Well, Tim, your garden is the leadoff garden on the new FG website. I love seeing your gravel garden through the seasons. I need to do that with my garden (take photos from the same location throughout the year). I love your plant choices, especially the Mangave 'Chocolate Chip'. My 'Cherry Chocolate Chip' is growing well in the basement under lights for the winter (it's now about 2 feet across). Thanks for getting me excited about growing it.
I really like the look of this new format. It' s clean and Joseph made up some nice, flowery captions for the photos. I just named them by date... :)
Glad to hear your Manfreda is doing well. They are such cool plants and I'm looking for other hardy varieties to try. I'm also trying to break the container Agave habit and replace them with Mangaves. There are so many now and very cool, and they seem to tolerate container life in wet, humid summers.
I'm anxious to see what your garden is doing this spring.
What was your former screen name Kevin?
My FG account screen name was kevinjayhawk, but I noticed if I go back on old GPOD posts, I have become a number with no screen name. When I started posting on GPOD, I just used Kevin Kelly.
Creative, very interesting!
Thanks. It's a lot of fun to see what will grow.
Good morning Tim, I was sure you had run out of space but then you (apparently) jump over the fence into a whole new world & garden experience. It looks terrific in all seasons. The carved stone looks familiar ,Have you posted a photo of this area before ? Your imagination seems Boundless, good luck, Joe
Good morning, Joe. Thanks for the nice comment. You've definitely seen the carved stone before. In fact, with this new format there is a section below these comments called Related Articles. There are two previous posts of this garden. The one that says READERS PHOTOS is actually the first batch of photos I sent to GPOD and it shows how the gravel garden was created. :)
Thanks for pointing out the additional opportunities below to see some of your previous GPOD sharings. I especially appreciate all the plant identifications in the first one titled Surprises Amongst the Gravel.
Good morning, Tim. I love how you have given this niche area such great 4 season interest. The inclusion of the column was pure inspiration and the peek a boo effect in the snow of the spiky plant tips and their seed stalks provide continued architectural interest. Is your gravel garden visible from looking out through a window? Seems like you deserve to view it on a cold winter day.
Good morning, Michaela. You know, I actually angled that sandstone column so that it faces our kitchen window and the rest of the garden is designed off that angle so that the best view is from that window. :)
Good planning...sometimes it best not to leave everything to serendipity.
Good Morning, Tim. Fun to have a space that can bear a gardener's whim so readily. I wonder how it will look this year. Having had the pleasure of seeing this unique space in person, I can only begin to imagine what will be coming up next, especially when I also see the seasonal orders you sometimes post. Looking forward to my next visit.
It definitely is a garden that readily bends to my whims and moodiness! :)
Nice to have comments back and good to see gardens in all 4 seasons.
Great to see your gravel garden again, Tim. Popped back to your first photos on GPOD. It's fun to see changes over the years.
Thanks. I've ripped a lot of more aggressive stuff over the years to make room for new things to try. I'm really anxious for spring to see what survives.
I love your gravel garden Tim. Everytime I think I've seen all the plants I find another one to drool over!
I'm still quite green with envy over your mangave, it's quite the beauty. How many do you have now?
I just went back to check out Surprises Amongst Gravel and was reminded of that gorgeous beauty, Buckiniczia cabulica. I'm overjoyed it has been hardy, geez I adore that little plant!
Thanks, Sheila. I've two Manfreda in the garden and four Mangave in containers. That Bukiniczia is a plant that thrives in Colorado. It's sort of sad that it's biennial. All of my seedlings from the first three plants died over the summer except for one, that isn't looking too good. I'm hoping it survives to set seed, but I intend to buy more to hedge my bets.
Beautiful, Tim ! Absolutely love seeing your art !!! I can wait to see the front again too
You've always been so kind. I *really* can't wait to see the front garden, too, as well as the rest of my brown and muddy yard!
:)
Thanks
Well, my prior post didn't seem to make it, so I'll try again. I've reset my user name (it wouldn't take my prior one either, despite recognizing me in the log-in). Tim, again, as always, your garden is inspiring to those of us who are new to gravel gardening and niche gardening - thanks for a shot of inspiration on this first day of February, with promises of plummeting temperatures.
Joseph: I'm still trying to figure out the pluses and minuses of the new site - I, too, like the cleaness of the look, but am finding I have to keep logging back in to view comments - even when I leave the window open to go to another window, when I come back, I need to re-enter the log in. Then the whole page will re-load - a problem for those of us with little broadband width. Without Disqus, will we be advised when somebody has replied to us? Or do we need to just keep checking back?
I was just thinking the same thing about notification of comment replies and wrote to Steve Aitken to see if that will be added. Thanks for your kind words.
Hi Cheryl,
The ability to be notified about comments has been put on the list of fixes. Apparently there are other bugs more important to the site at the moment. If you -- or anyone -- has suggestions, please send them to me at [email protected] or use the feedback button which appears at the bottom of the screen (for now)
Good morning, Tim. What a great use of a former parking area. Do you have a lane running behind your home where this is planted or is it on the house side of the fence? I hope it’s the latter since such a pretty garden should be seen by you. We have a spot in our yard that used to be a bocce court so it’s very sandy and you’ve given me some inspiration for what we can do with it. Thanks, my husband will be delighted? Linda O’Connell
Ooh, a new project. I've read that lots of alpine and rock garden plants grow well in sand. Our back yard is shallow and has an ugly alley that runs behind it. Looking at these photos, our house is basically at your view; to the left of the gravel garden (sort of) is still a gravel parking pad off the alley we use. The garden is quite easy to see from the house.
This is just beautiful----so calm and well thought out. It's surprising (to me, at least) how all these plants can make it with just 6 inches of soil above all that gravel. But often adequate drainage is just what's needed.
How long has this transformation taken?
I'm always surprised at what grows and what doesn't meet my expectations. I created the garden in 2008.
This is so wonderful! Who would have thought. Only a gardener. I am looking for nice garden art like the column. Does anyone have any ideas.
Beautiful new format. I'm glad comments are back because this community is what really makes this site so appealing. Beautiful photos, Tim. The snow scene is especially striking.
Thanks. We had a couple of beautiful snows this year.
What a fantastic transformation - love this gravel garden!
Thanks. I think I change it more than any other part of my garden: a great experiment.
Truly unique garden, definitely peaceful and calm. Thanks for sharing.
Many thanks.
Always enjoy your gardens Tim and remember well your little gravel garden with all of the interesting succulents. What a beautiful garden you turned that spot into, you must receive a lot of sun there. I am also anxious to see your fab front garden this summer - wonder what plans you have for it? and I know how anxious you (and all of us) are to get out into the dirt. Thank you.
That gravel garden certainly gets a lot of sun, although the side closest to the neighbor's yard does start to get shade in the afternoon from trees. One side of my front garden saw a few changes last year and needs to fill in; the other has never really worked quite as well, but I've yet to catch a vision for what I want to do. Maybe this will be the summer inspiration strikes!
Love the gravel, and now I am pondering where I can put something similar.
Curious to see whether I come up as Pat from Maple Valley or a number...
Wow, Tim, you've done well in a difficult spot. It's really pretty!
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