Overflowing With Ideas

I found endless ideas at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show. I was snapping pictures left and right. Here are some of my favorites!

If I ever have a reason to have a lavish garden party, this one looks pretty romantic.

My favorite area was this section (for vendor information see here).

I love this ladder shelf... and I have a ladder or two just waiting to be made into a similar model. And if you are short on space and have a drill, this wall planter would allow you to grow plenty of edibles.

 

They tucked their hose into old tires. and the tiered garden is a nice space saver, too. But my favorite thing about this picture is the shovel as the rail post.  

 

Love this herringbone brick pattern. 

Love, love, love this sort-of adirondack chair.  

 

And I wish I had a reason to make a giant letter in my garden... 

This shed seems to be made from all salvage materials.  So inspiring! 

And note to self: someday have a flower market! 

Last summer a good friend I ventured onto a local garden tour run by our local public gardens. Several gardens around Janesville, WI were featured. I was impressed with the diversity, some elaborate and mature gardens, and some newer; some with focus on plants and color, and other with elaborate water features; some in new homes, and some in very, very old ones; some close together in one neighborhood--in fact with connecting back yards, and others practically out of town. I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon!

I thought exploring these garden pictures on this dark, blustery, winter day would get me excited for spring!

This unique house was along the way on the walk, but the garden was not featured. I liked their landscaping quite a bit as it reminded me of what my home's landscaping looked like when I moved in. :) I have got to trim hedges to get this nice manicured look back!

A beautiful water feature.

A sunny and wonderfully colorful front yard garden. You can click on the photo to enlarge it. I love this!!

Another enviable manicured area.


The homeowner told us this was a bowling ball with grout, pennies, and marbles. She got it free from a bowling alley when they were getting rid of balls. Neat idea!

A massive water feature, in an extremely scenic side yard.

An out of bloom clematis grows low on this unique fence trellis.

A distant look at the huge water feauture.

Beyond the water feature this shed, and whimsical glass balls. I loved this scene, and stared at for a long time.


Grape vines and grapes clung to the stone walls of the old home.


A rock garden nestled in one of the sunnier spots beside the water feature. Love how the gold ball ornament is just stuck down in between the sedum.

More views of the water feature from different angles.

This is another home, in a shaded woodland area.

This sun was suspended from fishing line in both directions, and just dangling above a garden bed.

In yet another garden these gorgeous roses were growing beside this bird bath.

Love these bird baths made from elephant ears, but have never seen one in real life. So cool!

I love this idea: to keep track of her roses, this gardener painted their names on rocks, in an obviously weather-proof paint.

This very tall yellow orienpet lily was gorgeous, and smelled incredible!

I did a lot of chatting, and exporing, so I didn't take as many pictures as I may have liked. I hope you enjoyed my snapshots of the 2009 Garden Walk.

One last treasure on our getaway...

On our way back down from Cambria to Los Angeles we passed back through Solvang. We spent the morning and afternoon eating and wine tasting. On our way into town, though, I spotted this place on the side of the road, and I just had to stop:

We breezed through here, but I did find some things I fell in love with. This potting bench for one:

The squirrels here made my day. They were giant.

Cute, clever birdhouse.

Look closely, at the base of this whiskey barrel fountain there's a frog sleeping. His head, belly, and legs peak out of the ground. Cute!

Junk treasures abound.

I could make my very own bed like the one I saw at Cambria with this frame. Gorgeous. If only, I were rich.

Almost done posting pictures of our vacation to California, and have lots to share at home, too.

The Amazing Gardens at Cambria Pines Lodge

My very favorite part of our recent vacation to California was our time back at Cambria Pines Lodge in Cambria, Ca. In December of 2002 this lodge was our second stop on our honeymoon, but I due to cold and rainy weather, and my being sick, I hardly had time to visit the gardens then. This time around, I was in the garden before my husband was finished checking us in.

This is the front porch of the main building on the property.

Here we are in front of our modest room. The duplex cabin-style rooms have fireplaces, and even in August's summer heat the night's cooled off into the upper 40's, so we had a fire. To get this shot I used the camera timer and propped it up on a porch chair. Behind the rail of the small porch area we had a giant lavendar bush practically climbing into the window of our room.

The best part of the gardens on the property, for me, was the miniature houses. I liked these so much I actually started my own at home. Cambria nursery, around the corner from the lodge, sells the components they use for these houses. I also noticed, on the nurseries website, they have a class where you can make one these coming up in early October this year.

This one was my favorite!




Another area of the garden had this beautiful Agave. I was captivated, and later brought home a similar one from my aunt's garden.

Aloe? Agave? I'm not that good at the arid climate plants, but no matter what it is, I like it!
These interesting colorful flowers were growing haphazardly around a hedge of arborvitae.


A beautiful living sculpture, don't you think?

My husband's favorite part was the secret garden:

One of the many alluring paths in the secret garden.


This fountain was inside the secret garden.



A perennial heaven, still inside the secret garden.


I don't know what these are, but I'm in love.


We found a nice bench for resting inside the secret garden, although I could barely sit down b/c of all the sights and smells around me. This area did feel relaxing, and secluded, and a bit magical.


After leaving the secret garden I turned a corner and found the rose garden!





This one was massive.

Outside of the rose garden the colorful borders had me mesmorized. I should add, if you eat at the restaurant at the lodge, you can actually sit out in an area of the garden. This mossy rock here was a trickling fountain.

I could not be happier.

Can you believe the color here? Surreal, and beautiful!

Cerinthe:

A nice colorful groundcover? Gazania?

More borders.

Mix of hollyhocks, cosmos, and rose of sharon.

Another spectacular part of the garden was this bedroom scene, I'll let the pictures do the talking:

The mirror is a fountain. Yes, this place was that cool!

After romping about town, wine tasting, sitting on the beach, and shopping (more to come on that, b/c the shopping in this town is fabulous), we went back to the lodge and took a walk with the wine we bought that day. The rooms came with wine glasses, and bottle openers. :)

Sipping wine in the secret garden:

My view from the bench:


How lovely is this?

Back to my favorite again:

I bought my mom some of these chocolate cosmos at the nursery:

One more walk through the rose garden.


This is the front porch of the main building. I loved the mix of bacopa and hardy geranium.

Look at the salvia, nemesia, and more...

On the path back to our room we found this bottle brush tree. I had these by my house when I was a kid, and I hadn't seen one up close in such a long time.

And the sunset from outside our room:

Hope you enjoyed my trip to the Cambria Pines Lodge gardens. More to come on my visit to the town of Cambria, and our trip back through Solvang on our way home.

Happy Gardening!