Author: Laura Lee Rose

When rooms in your home need a change, you move the pictures on the wall, add a piece of furniture or lamp to give the room a new feel.  We can do the same thing with outdoor garden rooms.  When we add a vertical or horizontal element to the garden, it seems to change.  I belong to the “garden as an illusion” school as taught by the late Emily Whaley.  She believed that you create the look or focal points in the garden that you want people to see. We change the appearance of a garden room by adding something new or old.  I really enjoy using old pots and buckets, crockery, and sinks as planters. 

Got Magic? When I was a very little girl I thought my grandparents were magic.  They were gardeners.  Every Saturday, it seemed to me, they worked in the yard.  They grew some of the shrubs that lined the long driveway to their house. Camellia japonica, C. sasanqua, holly, boxwood, and several varieties of azaleas were planted down the drive and around the house.  Two acres of sandy earth had tall pine trees which gave shade, pine needles, and helped acidify the soil to the liking of those acid-loving plants.  My grandfather never bought mulch.  What I clearly remember is the miniature forest of rooted cuttings in sand boxes with window sashes over them.