Member profile for Phantom-Rose
 Gardening since 2003
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I became interested in gardening as a result of my Wiccan spirituality & a desire to grow my own herbs for healing, ritual & folk purposes. I'd never had this opportunity before my husband & I bought our house. So, when we did I took full advantage of our spacious back yard. My intent was simply to grow a simple patch of a few specific herbs, nothing more. But a previous owner had been an avid gardener & several flowers still cropped up just around the base of the house that first spring & summer & they caught my interest. Before I knew it, I was adding to them, changing & rearranging them, expanding spaces, adding new gardens throughout the yard, each with its own theme & plant types. I went crazy! Now I have 20+ separate plots & gardens throughout my property as well as various shrubs, bushes & decor items. It is a constantly evolving little paradise that I get more joy out of creating than I do from any final product. I also have many types of critters that visit frequently throughout the year. Gardening has opened up new worlds for me that I only knew existed on a surface level. I am more attuned to Mother Nature than I ever imagined: weather patterns, changing seasons, the habits of local wildlife, the phases of the moon, & how all of these things affect & interact with one another & with me. The Earth has become my direct teacher, spiritually, academically & intuitively. Gardening is hard work physically & mentally but it brings me such joy & peace of mind. It is soothing, relaxing, meditative, liberating & stress relieving. I feel very blessed to have found this experience & make it a part of my everyday life.
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My Goddess Paradise Beaver Dam, WI
I actually have several gardens scattered around my property, each with its own theme, plant types, light & soil compositions, & levels of care. My gardens are continuously evolving year after year. There is no ultimate goal or end result I am striving for....
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Garden A - Colorful 3-Season Sun Garden Beaver Dam, WI
This garden is located on the south side of my house, right outside the front door. This garden was here when we moved into out house, primarily blooming spring bulbs. Since then I have modified, added to it & have tried to make it into a 3-season garden....
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Garden B, Formerly Beaver Dam, WI
This garden existed when we moved into our house. Then after 7 years we got rid of it, as it seemed redundant to neighboring gardens . It was also very difficult to get anything new to grow there due to the tight space & invasive natures of the plants already...
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Garden C - Sunny Pastel Garden Beaver Dam, WI
This garden is on the south side of my house. It gets almost continuous sunlight year round & as a result requires extra care in keeping the soil moist & finding plants that will tolerate drought-like conditions. This is sort of the companion to Garden A,...
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Garden D - White Moon Garden Beaver Dam, WI
This garden is located on the south side of my house, towards the back. It is a fairly big space that gets ample sunlight with some afternoon shade. This was originally a vegetable garden but after the first year or two I realized I didn't want to grow veggies....
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Garden E - Deck-Side Annual/Perennial Garden Beaver Dam, WI
This was the 1st garden I established myself, that wasn't there when we moved into our house. In 2003, I began my gardening journey here. I planted 4 packets of herb seeds here: lemon balm, lavender, basil & chamomile. Nothing but weeds grew that year. But I...
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Garden F - Back Deck Roses Beaver Dam, WI
This is the area right behind our back deck & consists primarily of roses & lilies that were present when we moved into our house. Other roses have been added & replaced frequently due to winter damage & failure to thrive, but it all seems to be...
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Garden G - Untamable Flowers in Partial Shade Beaver Dam, WI
Located on the north side of our back deck, this garden has a bit of a wild look to it, with a lot of bushy, far-spreading plants. Its bloom period is primarily spring through midsummer. I am trying to find unique shade-loving summer-blooming plants to go there.
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Garden H - Deep Shade Garden Beaver Dam, WI
This area is almost totally shaded & had been totally overrun by lily of the valley & a few ferns when we moved in. Although I love lily of the valley, this area was unruly & so overrun it was choking itself out. It took us a good 2 weeks to dig it...
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Garden I - Pastel Shade Garden Beaver Dam, WI
Another almost fully-shaded garden that had been totally overrun by lily of the valley, stray ferns, & naturalized orange wild lilies when we moved in. Due to its full shade location, finding colorful plants to grow there throughout the season is a challenge....
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Garden J - Eye-Catching Front Garden in Dappled Shade Beaver Dam, WI
This had been a small hedge & some stray hostas & lilies in front of our house when we moved in. We have since ripped it all out & made it into a formal bulb garden that refuses to bloom in any uniform manner! This is due to the large black walnut tree...
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Garden K Beaver Dam, WI
This is a shade garden that sits against the side of our garage. Shade comes from the shadow of the garage itself, which is present for most of the day. It only gets sun at each end in the early morning & at sunset.
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Garden L Beaver Dam, WI
This garden has transformed often, from a white flower garden to a lunar herb garden to a daisy patch, which is its current incarnation. I'm trying to get daisies other than Black-Eyed Susans & Shastas to grow there but those two tend to crowd everything else...
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Garden M Beaver Dam, WI
This is my little round purple patch. It's mostly salvias with Siberian irises around the outer edge. It was supposed to contain Russian sage in the center & blue Dutch irises in an outer circle around the salvia but those never came in. The salvia gets big...
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Garden N Beaver Dam, WI
This space was created solely for a garden set I purchased through Burgess & its affiliates in Bloomington, IL (buy from them at your own risk - only about 1/3 of what you get will thrive). The only thing that survived that garden setup were the beautiful orange...
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Garden O - Wheel of the Year Herb Garden Beaver Dam, WI
This was the first garden we dug in our back yard, the first one I had all planned out with graphs & lists to honor my Wiccan faith & fulfill my dream of having a great herb garden. Every aspect of it has magickal & spiritual significance. It is a circle...
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Garden Q Beaver Dam, WI
Shade garden beneath the big maple tree in our back yard. Contains very hardy & shallow-rooted shade plants that needn't compete with the tree for soil nutrients. Our neighbors have several tall pine trees that hang over this area of our yard, dropping cones...
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Garden S - Dappled Shade Back Border Beaver Dam, WI
Runs along the back border of our yard. It contains a variety of wildflowers, bushes, perennials, & bulbs. It sits beneath our neighbors' tall pine trees, which provide it shade & acid for its soil.
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Garden T - The Fire Pit Beaver Dam, WI
This garden was my husband's idea. Initially it was made to resemble a campfire: circular with an outline of large stones & flowers in shades of red, orange & yellow resembling flames. It was to include things like crested coleus, butterfly weed, colored...
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Garden U - The Ameba Garden Beaver Dam, WI
So named for its shape, it was created when we pulled out some dying rose bushes. The 1st couple years I planted miniature roses here, but they didn't do so well over the winter. Then I tried making it into another herb garden but the plants got too big, blocking...
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Roses Beaver Dam, WI
My great true love, roses abound throughout my yard of various types. They are my great joy but also my greatest challenge. Between yearly infestations of Japanese beetles & black leaf spot that erupts on some of them due to tenuous treatments to eradicate said...
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Potted Plants & Wildlife Beaver Dam, WI
Catch-all for everything that can't be classified as a "garden". I do everything in my power to make my yard hospitable to various forms of wildlife. We have 2 bird feeders, a birdbath, 2 birdhouses, a bat house, & many flowers that draw bees, butterflies, hummingbirds...
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Our Grounds Des Moines, IAOrnamental, beds and borders where evergreen conifers and deciduous shrubs mingle with perennials, bulbs, and a few favorite annuals. Some Iowa prairie plants such as side-oats grama grass. A still-water, self-maintaining...
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UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley Berkeley, CA |
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Boston Fenway Victory Garden Boston, MA
by
Kristen
In the early spring the daffodils and tulips start to poke out of the ground...the 2 lilac bushes begin their blooms soon after. During mid-May, I begin to add veggie, herb, and annual plantings. Also, my parents bring...
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Your Entomolo-Garden Oakland, CAWelcome to the Insect News Network on YourGardenShow! The I.N.N. travels the globe to learn how people think and feel about our 6- and 8-legged friends. The I.N.N. is a non-stop, multi-media interdisciplinary plunge...
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Claire's Amsterdam Balcony Netherlands
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Claire
A small balcony in Amsterdam, with morning sun. Click on the photos for more explanation!
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The Green Gardener in Herald, California Herald, CAGreetings from Herald, CA. Located just South East of Sacramento by 20 miles. Millions of grape vines cover the Herald landscape and vegetables grow well here with a good compost pile to nourish our Green Garden....
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Patterns of Growth Fremont, CAMy garden is my art, literally. I grow plants so I can photograph them in new and interesting ways. There is such a variety of plants in the San Francisco Bay Area and I pluck not only from my yard, but along the trail...
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YourGardenShow Busy Bee San Francisco, CA
by
The-Busy-Bee
YourGardenShow.com - the social network for gardeners, by gardeners
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| Favorite gardening books: | All |
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| Favorite vegetable: | Tomatoes - because they are impossible to get wrong! |
| Favorite flower: | flowering herbs, lilies, foxglove, larkspur, tulips, hyacinth, daffodils, lily of the valley |
| Favorite tree / shrub: | Roses, pussy willows, lilacs |
| Gardening organizations: | |
| Favorite park / arboreteum: |
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