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August Spielhaus garden

August 26, 2016August 20, 2017 Cindy at enclos*ure3 Comments

I want to bring you a little late summer update on this garden.

1a Hohenheim garden, Aug 23, 2016, enclos*ure — The garden and a corner of the 18th century Spielhaus through Deschampsia cespitosa grass.

I started out in March meaning to track the flowers of the Spielhaus (playhouse) perennial garden at the University of Hohenheim for this year’s GB Bloom Days. However, travel, gloomy weather, and hurting feet have interfered, and I haven’t posted an update since May.

I did pay a visit this week, however, on Tuesday evening, and there was lots of color.

Above, American Rudbeckia hirta or Black-eyed Susans draw the eye, paired with a red cultivar of Ricinus communes, and Coreopsis on the other side of the path.

The obelisk in the background memorializes Duke Carl Eugen von Württemberg and Franziska von Hohenheim. They built Hohenheim Palace (now a University building) and the English landscape-style garden/arboretum around it (now the University’s botanical garden).

Franziska was first the king’s mistress, then his morganatic wife. The main palace building was barely finished when he died. The family then pressured her into giving up Hohenheim for another estate.

Above: the Rudbeckia and white Oenothera lindheimeri (gaura).

This pink phlox has a beautiful scent, but it has grown up over its label, so I can’t tell you the variety.

Above: with the red caster bean plant behind it.

The garden is roughly a rectangle with a bit of slope, set in front of the Spielhaus terrace. Narrow stone paths run through it lengthwise.

I don’t have the name of the species of the Panicum grass on the left above. The smoke bush on the right of the path is Cotinus coggygria ‘Young Lady’.

Above: tree peonies on the left, Agapanthus on the right.

Above: the center area.

I particularly like the garden’s layout. And the display of plants is very popular with the neighborhood. It’s rare that I get it almost to myself.

Above and below: heleniums in front of the terrace — unfortunately, the label was hidden.

Above and the two photos below: looking across the garden from the Spielhaus terrace — left to right. (That’s another — taller and fuller — pink phlox on the left.)

Above: Just beyond the Spielhaus area, the trees, pond (left), and lawn of Carl Eugen’s and Franziska’s landscape garden.

Throughout this summer, the University has opened one room inside the Speilhaus on weekend afternoons. If you click on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on any of the thumbnail images, you can see some snapshots that I took in late July. The room holds a scale model of the palace grounds in Carl Eugen’s time, when there were about 60 folly-type buildings. Today, only the Spielhaus and one other remain.

Continue reading “August Spielhaus garden” →

Wordless Wednesday: terrace

August 24, 2016August 20, 2017 Cindy at enclos*ure1 Comment

Spielhaus Garden, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, last August.

Our August yard

August 16, 2016August 20, 2017 Cindy at enclos*ure3 Comments

Here are some mid-month pictures of our shaggy backyard on one side. (Click on any thumbnail image below to enlarge it.)

Shaggy. . . .

The pattern that I cut in the grass in May has blurred quite a bit, but I still enjoy it, especially in the morning light.

Our little corner bean-shaped flower bed has produced a surprising number of blooms this summer, considering that I had pretty much written it off last fall and had started using it as a compost pile. I thought this would kill off everything but the golden spirea and the “Fairy” rose, and then I could start over with better ground.

The ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum is just about to go pink.

The little ‘Fairy’ rose started slowly but is now covered in blooms.

This yellow rosebush has filled out several bouquets this summer.

A single self-sown black-eyed Susan.

Instead, the previously sickly looking hydrangea, hybrid tea roses, and sedums seem to like growing under at least 3″ to 6″ of half-rotted leaves and grass clippings (and some coffee grounds). I did smother a lot of weeds, but I don’t know what has happened to the mice that were living there too.

My plan to follow the Spielhaus Garden this year for Bloom Days and Foliage Follow Ups has not worked out very well due to travel, rainy weather, and a sometimes hurting foot — with surgery planned in a few weeks — but I hope I can get over there sometime this month and bring you an update.

Thanks to Pam at Digging for hosting Garden Bloggers’ Foliage Follow Up on the 16th of every month. And to see the mid-month flowers of other garden bloggers, please visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

In a vase on Monday: roses

July 18, 2016August 20, 2017 Cindy at enclos*ure11 Comments

These white, yellow, and pink roses came from bushes that were in our garden when we moved into the house, and last summer they looked a bit sad and didn’t produce many flowers. But I mulched them well with fallen leaves in autumn and continuously fed them my used coffee grounds over the winter. Then, we had a lot of rain this spring and June, and, finally, some sun and warmth in July, so when we got back from France on Friday each bush had several open blooms.

The arrangement’s color combination, however, while cheerful in the living room, wasn’t very pretty in my pictures, so I switched to black and white.

To see what other garden bloggers have put in vases today, please visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

And if you voz to see my roziz
As is a boon to all men’s noziz —
You’d fall upon your back and scream —
“O Lawk — O crikey! It’s a dream!”

— Edward Lear