Life At Villa Boswell

Part of making Pine Cottage a more appealing place to live involved the garden.  In the spring of 2004, I embarked on an extensive project to create a pond and surrounding garden for the cottage.  Since I was new to landscaping and landscaping design, I decided to break up the garden into "sections" that I would then design with a specific dominant color in mind.  I can say that, almost 4 years later, this was one of the better decisions I made. 

So, the front area to the left of the house entrance became the "blue" garden.  I remember imagining the barren plot as bursting with blues of hydrangeas and other plants, a glorious array of color and texture.  It’s a good thing I can work on delayed gratification, because it took 3 years to achieve just the look I had in mind, and countless plant adjustments and discoveries, some of which I want to capture here.  However, I consider this area of the garden one of my better achievements. You can see in the photo album below a chronology of this section of my garden, with some description of the changes I made and why.  Click the arrow to view the slide show, or click on the photo to go directly to the album to view in larger size. (If viewing the album, be sure to click the "slide show" link for the full effect.)

The rest of this post is about the lessons I’ve learned in the process of working on the "blue" garden.

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October in Northern CA means it’s time to prune your hydrangeas.  Right now, my hydrangeas have maxed out on their lovely fall tones.  Here’s a shot from my "blue" garden, one in the spring, the other in the fall.  You can see how they change over the seasons. (Note: all photos are from my web album.  You can click on them to see them in larger size and zoom in on details.)

I also use sulphur granules to keep these hydrangeas blue. I have found that using sulphur granules is safer than the often-recommended application of aluminum sulphate. (I use Whitney Farms granulated sulphur in case you want to find some yourself.) Here, you can see the Nikko Blue in the pot received a slightly erratic application of the sulphur, since some of the blooms tend toward pink.  (more…)