I would have to say my gardens are country cottage. I have a bit of everything in them (at least plants that will grow in my 3/4 zone garden). Deer come by in the fall so I also plant deer proof plants. I havent figured out which ones they don't like yet! They ate my herbs, lilacs and some peonies this fall. I love roses and lavendar but have found that they dont make it over the winters well where I live. I plant alot of peonies in the roses place. I also have a veggie garden. I plant a lot of short season crops, the average last frost here is around the 2nd week in June and the first frost the middle of Aug. I can grow a few tender veggies but I have to cover them when a frost comes. I mix plants together. I have rhubarb, alpine strawberries and herbs in with my flowers. Most veggies stay in my fenced veggie garden because of stray deer coming through the yard. My plants are the common varieties because of my winters. I do have a lot of hummingbirds come in the summer(20 -75 birds by Sept) so I do try to plant flowers for them. I used almost 75 lbs. of sugar this year for the hummers. Thank you Costco for 25 lbs. bags of sugar!

Valree- All deer are different, but I've had good luck with lavender in front of my roses. Mostly Canadian hardy roses, rugosas and old fashioned roses...with lots of Hidcote lavender. The only place I've found it is at Lowe's and once in a while, at Fred Meyer. Munstead is supposed to be pretty hardy and I got some on sale at the end of the summer...so we'll see how they do over the winter.

Isn't it hard to grow vegetables with a short season? Ours is from June 1 to about August 25, so a few weeks longer than yours. I think I'm going to plant more potatoes, carrots, other root vegetables and fast things, like lettuces and spinach. Tomatoes are always a challenge and pumpkins and melons are not too successful, either. Zucchini has done well, so maybe other summer squash would be good, too.

What do you use to cover the plants from frost? I've looked into a few things, but they're either too light weight (and will blow into the horse pasture) or too easy for the barn kitties to get into.

Wow! So many hummingbirds must be amazing. We have three or four that stop by to visit in late summer. They love the red bee balm and I think that would be hardy for you. Do you have any? Do you want some? It spreads like crazy...but not as much as spearmint :)

Here in the wet winter/dry summer West, our urban lot is divided up into 15 separate beds divided by hardscape. And all of it has to be hand-weeded, like...right...now. Oh, my aching back! Oxalis pes-caprae is a pretty weed, but pernicious nonetheless. I can't get rid of it, best I can do is yank it out by the handful and keep it from smothering other plants.

All the bed are cottage-style, but they are grouped according to site requirements: sun amount and water needed. There's a lot of shade on our property so there's only a few full-sun areas.

When gardeners in other regions are resting, on the coastal West it's our busiest season. We weed, we clean-up (the dead leaves fall just as it rains, making a mess), we plant new plants, we fertilize (the freesia and narcissus leaves are well up), we worry about frost (yes, we lose plants to cold just like everybody else).

OTOH, I'm still picking bouquets of iris, roses, and hydrangeas for the vase, along with the first crop of Meyer lemons.

Water is a huge issue out here. It's expensive (relatively speaking) and droughts happen regularly. My plantings are grouped so that run-off will water several of the xeric beds - we live on a hillside so there's a slope not only front to back, but side to side.

I don't think most people looking at my garden would notice the various styles of gardens as they are all sort of cottage style with a mix of plants and a lot of overlap. My garden is currently 'in transition' so not sure exactly how it will end up! LOL Depends on how much I can stick to the plan I *may* make in the new year. January/February is usually when I plan my garden but have almost never been able to follow the plan so who knows!

So based on history I have had several different types of gardens based on location. I have an area with mostly conifers in my front garden so had a shade garden which was not very successful as those trees take all the moisture and nutrients and it's a struggle to keep it amended and watered enough. Have now had the trees limbed up so there will be less shade and have amended and mulched heavily. It will still be a dry-ish garden so I need to use appropriate plants there. The only plant that survives well there is Lily of the Valley but it isn't invasive as the soil is dry and poor so it's a good place for it.

Another area is near the bird feeder and birdbath and I allowed several different types of perennials to self-seed for years so it was a jungle and I called it my 'wild bird garden'. This area has now had all weeds and self-seeders removed and has many spaces between plants. I hope to *never* again allow it to go wild. I'm using a lot of cardboard and mulch to help with this. There are lilacs, a spirea, perennial sunflowers, delphinium, and some new perennials but there are lots of spaces for other plants and I'll move several from other areas.

I also have a couple of "dry-er" gardens that are further away from the house so I infrequently water those and only tough plants survive there. Various poppies, irises, day lilies, potentilla, and perennial sunflowers are there.

Nearer the house I have my rose bed with a few other perennials and usually annuals. There are also several very mixed perennial beds with many hardy perennials and a few shrubs. These are the beds that get tended the most and they are too full so many plants will be moved to other areas in the spring. Some plants I will move are columbine, Lady's Mantle, iris, lilies, some groundcovers, lamb's ears, maybe delphinium, blue flax. I also plan to propagate more Walker's Low catmint as can hardly have too many of these. I always add herbs in between the perennials so need to leave/make spaces for them.

Everything I grow is extremely frost hardy altho I do push the zone a bit and have some zone 4 plants. Everything else is considered an annual.

I'm amazed you use lilacs lavender lass to keep the deer away as the deer here have loved my lilacs. I now have deer-proof fencing so hopefully will see lilac blooms next year and be able to grow many other plants.

Jkom- Your mixture of plants (flowers and lemons!) sound wonderful, but all the weeding does not. It is kind of nice to get a break, in the winter :)

Luckygal- I posted this on the other thread, but maybe this is why the deer don't like the lilacs? They're all older varieties, planted in the 1950s and before...and they're huge. I moved a few of the smaller shoots into the fairy garden...in the back corners. I guess all deer are different and develop different tastes. Ours have lots of field and pastures, so maybe they just aren't that hungry. Although they do like alpine strawberries...so I moved those under some plants the deer don't like! {{gwi:83916}}From Lavender's Garden

Lass-Love the pic above! This is my veggie garden. I use walls of water in the spring time for tomatoes and cover them with blankets.I use clothes pins on the tomato cages to keep them from blowing off. In the fall I use cement blankets to cover peppers and tomatoes.I grow the same veggies that you do. I have a great green tomato pickle, because red tomatoes are few. The past 2 years I've grown minnesota midget cantaloupes. They are really tasty and the growing season is quite short. I do start them inside. Lass give them a try. I was showing off my melons last year! Val

There's one spot in the back yard where I plant any ugly veggies. The rest of the beds have roses, too. Lots of Lantana for the butterflies, and I like to pack whatever areas are left with Coleus, Perilla, Basil, sweet potato vine... The whole thing is a wild, unrestrained riot of color.

If stupid Mimosa stump will ever die, I'll plant the area directly around it. Still need space to get in there and kill it every day (for 3 years now.) At least next year a rose should be big enough to hide it from the street.

Hummm...I don't really have different types of gardens, as far as themes go that is. My beds are also separated by the amount of sun/shade moisture/dryness of the spot and how much work I am willing to put into the area.

The only real segregated garden I have is the raised veggie bed. The reason I have it this way is because I know myself all too well. If I were to plant veg and flowers together the flowers would eventually take over- I can't help myself!
CMK

I'm so glad there were some pictures posted.

LL, the purple lilac is the state flower of NH and I don't have a single one in my garden! I'm highly allergic to them so I admire them from afar, which isn't hard to do because they're like a weed in everyone's gardens up here.

Valree, I'm loving your veggie garden. Absolutely love the steel tubs. Did you get them from an Agway or the like? Are they feeding tubs? Do you have paths to get to the back of the beds?

Purple, "ugly veggies" made me chuckle this morning!

I do have different gardens throughout the yard but it just sort of happened. Sometimes I think I should really "plan" more, but I guess I get impatient because I'm addicted to plant material so I buy, buy, buy and then wander around the yard wondering wehre the heck to plant it!

I have a slope so I said "well, shrubs will be easiest here mixed with a few easy, no-maintenance perennials" so that became the "slope garden".

I did plan the picket fence courtyard in front of our house before we even broke ground and that is more of a cottage garden that we've converted partially to veggies.

Then I started collecting japanese maples so a japanese maple garden was born. Same thing with my tree peonies. Started collecting them and amongst them plant all my "special" shade plants. Some of which I can't mention how much I've paid. I'm a sucker for special shade plants. I have that garden up by the house. Guess I was lucky that was where the shade was because it's usually too close for comfort for deer to come in.

Then I have mixed shrub and perennial borders throughout the backyard. It's a much larger area so I wanted less maintenance out there. The deer have a field day out back. Such a tasty, expensive gourmet buffet I've put out for them!

I did try Irish Spring soap and they stayed away this year. We've also had a lot of hunters doing a great job culling the herd. The coyotes have been slackers so I'm glad we do have some respectful hunters that hunt the area.

Oh yeah, how can I forget about my daylily garden that I planted along the split-rail fence after seeing MaryLu's excellent daylily borders. She has such great gardens!

I think the lay of the land and the hardscape we had added early on was what made my garden to have different areas and designs. And sometimes it's just dumb luck that something works out. Of course, there are plenty of times where a great game of musical plants goes on due to good ideas gone bad!

It's snowing a little here this morning. The garden looks so pretty in the snow. I just hope we don't get three feet this year so that we can't see the garden until April!

Cheers!
Susan

I don't have different "gardens" per se, but when choosing plants, I usually stick with my 1920's/Japanese/Cottage/Winter Interest train of thought.

I am making an effort to tie different parts of my garden together, so it is hard to separate them into types. Except by orientation and moisture availability. I use different colors or varieties and different cultivars of the same species in perimeter beds to disguise the backyard fence. I like big grasses and viburnums and red-twigged dogwoods for structure. More flowering shrubs. Coneflowers, phlox, bee balm, coreopsis, salvia, calamint, geranium, lambs ears. Next I would like to get a common lilac. Come on spring! ;)