Name: Barbara
Location: Rockaway Beach — Queens, New York
We live at the beach in Rockaway, Queens and spend mornings and most evenings in the garden from April through November. Our gardening style is "anything that grows" goes. Objects that wash ashore often end up in the garden like the boat float we painted copper and the old fan thrown out by the grocery store up the block.
Thanks Barbara!
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Comments (8)
What a magical space!
Sweet garden, full of fantastic vibes. The found stuff is the best!
very lush garden, very sweet.
Lovely! I think it really shows the generosity of spirit of the in habitants. It's clearly a smaller space with neighbors very close, and although there's lots of stuff, it doesn't look cramped. Instead, it looks like there are many places for the eye to travel and to rest. Really nice.
This is perfect.
What a peaceful place! I live in Astoria, Queens and have a small garden about half this size with a small patio. I want to fix it up almost "anything that grows" style. However, I have a huge Mulberry Tree hanging over the garden that blocks most sunlight. The attempt to plant a vegetable garden this summer has proved to not be very fruitful. Any advice/suggestions for shade-loving plants/foliage?
My outdoor space is a work in progress, but I'm trying to get a faintly Japanese garden along with a "natural NE woodland" vibe. I'm blending plants for me that I just like to enjoy, and plants that are bird and butterfly friendly. Ideally both! This year I planted saplings of white birch and dogwood, some baby shrubs (18 inches?) of winterberry and rhododendron (a gorgeous blue-violet color and white). Some daylilies, iris, hosta, and other flowering plants, and a bunch of wildflower seeds that are producing flowers to please the critters. I made a "dry streambed" and put in a fun arched bridge from Costco! I had a couple of bronze herons from a previous home, and they are out there, too. The Japanese flavor requires more green pruned shrubs of size than I now have, but the beginnings are there. And most of the new plantings are supposed to attract wildlife as they mature.
stephentyler, I'd research mulberry trees if I were you. I don't have any and haven't read much about them (apart from thinking they were on the "birds love them" lists I saw recently). But I do have a nagging feeling I saw that they are hard to plant under because of the shade and their water and nutrient requirements. If that's true, you might want to put bark mulch or crushed rock under the tree then plant shade plants in containers. Impatiens, hostas, and ferns are examples that might work for you.
Great space! I especially like the bamboo fence and the laid-back atmosphere.