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This week as I have been thinking much about our new gardens what I’d like to plant and how to do all this, I have been drawn to gardens old and new…
Netflix has given me a wealth of programs to study and recently this one was recommended for me: Monty Don’s Italian Gardens. Monty begins his tour of Italian gardens in Rome with a study of classical Renaissance gardens. The series moves through the ages since the 15th century with gardens originally created by different Catholic cardinals all competing hopefully to be chosen as the future pope ~ their gardens created to impress and show their wealth and ability to rule the Catholic church.
As the series goes on, Monty shares how styles of gardens have changed and I am up to the Romantic garden style ending in episode 3.
He tours around a few properties on a Marconi bicycle which I found charming and the gardens are absolutely stunning! Do look up this series and afterwards check out Monty Don’s French Gardens (which is where I will head next!).
A Little Chaos ~ Also seen this week twice as I absolutely fell in-love with this story about a widow who is bestowed with the gift of gardening. This film from 2014 stars Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman plus features the every funny Stanley Tucci as the brother of France’s Sun King Louis Dieudonné, Louis XIV.
As Sabine De Barra, Winslet is wonderfully understated and humble working in a time when very few women held jobs let alone one as out in the public as a landscape artist. Very good film and I highly recommend it!
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| Sceptre d’Isle blooming in all its glory. |
Then of course I have been over to the David Austin Roses website as I wanted to study which roses would work as climbers on our south wall which is all brick but would look fantastic with an enormous rose climbing its walls!
Sigh…
🙂
Sceptre d’Isle is a rose I had back at our last home in California and I am so glad I bought another here for our Texas garden! It is loving its new home and looks stunning in its pot.
These pictures don’t do it justice and I need to find a better spot for it where it can really shine but this year is its second or third year planted and it is blooming madly and I shared a couple of pics on my Instagram.
It is absolutely loving its normal 5 hours of sunlight but being shaded from the really hot afternoon sun. This area where I was thinking of planting it and the other roses is just under our bedroom window and two very large oak trees provide lovely afternoon shade.
The iris having been blooming too and all seem to be a yellow with some brown bits ~ pretty and soft with their pale yellow blooms.
We need some defined pathways and this past weekend Mr. Ethereal and I went to a friend’s open house party ~ check out his lovely backyard walkway and the sweet Texas paver!
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| Love love love brick pathways! |
And I am thinking about a semi-circular stacked stone small planter wall for the roses and a matching one around the first oak tree, which will then be underplanted with some of these iris and some vining plants. Love these that Yoda and I found out locally on our weekend walkabout.
*Here’s a link to a cement pathway I laid out at our last house (this was the redo after fixing the pool equipment).
But right now it’s all about removing baby oak trees… They are everywhere in back and outfront!
Planted either by the local squirrels (whom I love anyway!) or buried by the massive water gushing off the roof eaves during storms (hence the mud splatters here and there) we are working on drainage and gutter fixing next.
So I leave this post as it is ~ a bit mud spattered but real life.
😉
Coming up next is Share Your Style so stop back over to link up and to find some inspiration!
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A bientôt,