Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #311 – What’s in the Garden

Published on by Yinglan

Happy Sunday! This week, Anne-Christine from Leya is hosting this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge and she has picked one of my favorite themes – What’s in the garden.

If you’ve followed me long enough, you’d know I love my garden, and I love to garden, no matter how difficult it get. I think gardening is a great way to connect with nature without the need to travel far and it’s a great way to give back to nature. As much as I love to share what’s in my garden, that’s for another post. In this post, I will instead share some of the gardens I’ve seen.

This is the front garden of my mom’s friend’s house in the UK. I was told it’s an Asian-inspired garden with the buddha statue and that other statue imported from China. It’s an impressive garden for such a small space with many plants packed into the gaps. I think this garden is more for standing afar and admire than walking around as there’s not really a path around the garden. As much as I think this garden is beautiful, I can’t see myself taking care of such a garden.

When I traveled to Japan last year, I became inspired when I saw people garden even in such small spaces as the front of their house. I mean, just look at that vine!

Earlier this year, I started a container garden on the steps of my front door. Unfortunately, if didn’t work out because I forgot to take into consideration that I live in the southwestern part of the US where we have next to no humidity, compared to Japan where, on average, is around 60% humidity.

I’m guessing it’s how that vine is able to grow big in such small pots without the worry that the soil will dry out.

Right now, the only container plants surviving on my front steps are sedums. These plants are so drought tolerant that it survived in the holes in the cinder block for the last 2 years.

I think the term “traditional” is fairly relative these days when it’s applied to things like a garden. These upcycle bicycle planters were a nice closing touch to the Tulip Festival – a great way to repurpose things like bicycles and old baskets.

Finally, I don’t think there’s any one way to garden. I think a garden can be a place where one can express one’s creativity and be a place to connect or reconnect with nature. For me, a garden is a kind of sanctuary and a place to observe the phemenon that is nature.

25 thoughts on “Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #311 – What’s in the Garden”

  2. I love to look at other people’s gardens to see what ideas I can repurpose to The Vicarage. Right now I am in the chopping out phase as much as I am in the planting phase. How do you put your garden away for the winter? Or is that not really a concern where you live?

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    1. My gardening zone is 7a but it behaved like a zone 5, so everything slows to a crawl after veteran’s day because of insufficient day length. I used to go all out in the fall to prepare my garden for the winter but I didn’t do that last year, I just put a thick layer of mulch to stop the green algae from forming on top of the soil. I don’t really see the point of preparing the garden for winter because you’ll have to do it again in the spring.

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      1. That’s been my way of working as well for the last seven years, but then I haven’t paid as much attention during the growing season to my forest in the last seven years either. I am considering what I should do this year to get ready for the Spring. I just don’t want to make myself more work.

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      2. For spring, I just use a fork to fluff up the top inch-or-so of soil before adding about an inch of compost or new soil plus fertilizer and mix those together with a garden fork or by hand. That’s about all I do for each bed.

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      4. I don’t know about you but I grow mostly in raised beds. The soil is so store-bought, none of that horrible clay soil. The clay can’t grow anything. I also had to add new soil to the ground beds. By adding new soil, over time, it should loosen the existing native soil.

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  4. “I think a garden can be a place where one can express one’s creativity and be a place to connect or reconnect with nature.” I’m with you, Yinglan. And every garden takes its man or woman to handle…Love the Japanese vine! I admired them for using the very tiny space in front of some houses, and making them spectacular. I also think you found a good solution to your own garden, using sedums the way you do. I have a lot of sedums as well as they can stand almost any weather. Loved your bicycles and agree about the word “traditional”.

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    1. I, too, admire the Japanese people of having a garden even in the smallest places. I think they have the humidity on their side, so somewhat it works. It can never work in my neck of the woods though because of the lack of humidity. Things dry out extremely dry here.

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  5. I can relate to how you do your gardening, we share the same point of view to it. I just have it easier as it always rains… I love you photos Yinglan especially the last one, too cute and a great idea 😀

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