Welcome
From the Ground Up: An Ohio Garden
Creating your own landscape
This gardening site deals mainly with designing and maintaining a home garden. If you need detailed information on particular plants I have some ‘Plant Highlight‘ pages and links to sites that have more specific information.
Growing calm in the garden:
“There is peace with a garden, a peace so deep and calm.
That when the heart is troubled, It’s like a soothing balm.
…So everyone tend your garden, its beauty to increase.
For in it you will find solace, and in it you will find peace
The purpose of this site:
Creating your dream of what your home garden should be, in terms of use, style, and landscaping. All parts of the site are geared towards sharing my experience of the joy of gardening with you.
If you are building a garden, and improving your landscape, I think it is worthwhile to have some good garden reference books for quickly locating plant how-to. My Bookshelf and the hand picked choices in the Garden Sundries.
The site has three main parts: Here, where all the newest articles arrive is the hub of information, The Gazebo is a portal to news pertaining to gardening and my collection of the best garden links. Within the site are the articles on many of the basic topics of garden design, off-site is my Garden Blog, with connection to the garden blogging community and the regular journaling of what happens in my own garden.
My garden pages are in sections according to topic, the master list of articles is on the page GardenDesign in the menu, but here are some highlighted descriptions to help you find your way around.
What you can find here
Garden Basics
All the garden pages that give you ideas on style, English style, Cottage style, New American style, and those which guide you to methods such as xeriscaping, soil improvement, and how to create a garden. Theme gardens such as a Serenity garden or one centered around herbs.
Perennials
I have several pages on perennials, the mainstays of the garden landscape.
Annuals
Ideas for seasonal color and specific descriptions of annual plants and guidance on planting the new plants. Putting together containers?
Gardening tips
The month by month gardening calender, of course, but also autumn and winter specific gardening advice and hints. Wonder how to translate the garden catalog language or find a recommended one? Garden Catalogs decoded. Garden tool recommendations and descriptions from this old gardener.
Roses
Two pages on rose gardening in a cold climate, with the added bonus of a popular page of rose poetry and quotations.
Bird and butterfly friendly gardens
An entire page on welcoming birds to your garden. Butterfly gardening advice and plant suggestions.
Bulbs
Tulips and daffodils, small bulbs galore, some of my first loves of gardening have inspired my landscape, and will do the same for yours with just a little care and attention.
Your home and all the extensions of it, whether the yard or your houseplants, influence your feeling of well being and that of those around you. Sometimes it is surprising how much! When I gardened in the city I would have people stop by to mention the effect my garden had on their enjoyment of the day. I know I am blessed whenever I see a bright patch of flowers or a even a pretty single flower unexpectedly announcing its loveliness. I hope this site is of some use to help you surround your self with a little more beauty and appreciation of creation.
“winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting, and autumn a mosaic of them all.” ~Stanley Horowitz
The newest pages are shown in the sidebar, Iris! Updated in other parts of the site are ‘Autumn Garden Tips‘ and ‘Birds in Your Garden‘. The Cottage Garden Style Series has been very popular, since so many like this nostalgic and romantic look. I am adding to the garden tips section: October.
For now, all my garden links are on the portal part of the site. I hope for this to be a comprehensive set of links and in the future will have a links page for my personal favorites as I had on the site originally. There are so many resources online for the gardener now, it is really amazing. I added a custom search for gardeners, GreenGarden search, try it!
Site Features:
Iris: Perennial Stalwart
Read my blog! On Blogspot: Ilona’s Garden Journal
It is “Time to Think Bulbs”
This ‘welcome’ page gets tweaked quite often, but soon the ‘news’ page will have updates so that I don’t have to re-edit this one as often. changes are happening all the time!
The Garden Gazebo is dedicated to newsworthy snippets of topics such as All American Selections for the year, a better way to compost, or an interesting natural pest control. There will be polls that change over time, and the master list of gardening links. It is worth a visit, and will have seasonal updates.
Explore the Garden : here or other parts of the site listed below
Copyright: ©Ilona’s Garden, Ilona’s Reflecting Pool, 2003-2007. All Rights Reserved.
