Hallson Gardens

Looks fantastic! I agree about letting it weather naturally.

Hi Bert,
Your gate looks brilliant I also think that you should let it weather naturally.
well done.
George

Herb, I love the gate. I always come here to look at pictures because you all have such beautiful, well-planned, well-tended gardens, it's almost like visiting in person.

But my question for you Herb . . . it looks like your path in the back is made from those concrete forms to simulate a stone path? Is it? Did you do it yourself? How easy or difficult was it? How long has yours been there? Would you recommend it? Any tips you learned from your experience?

Thanks for any information. I've been talking to my husband about using this method for a path through a garden bed in our yard.

Thanks!
Jane

Jane,

Yes, the path's concrete, cast using a plastic form.

It's not difficult, but one "square" takes roughly a whole bag of ready-mix concrete or more so it helps if you either have a powered concrete mixer, or you are strong & have a good wheelbarrow to mix it in.

Your path will need a good foundation. Sometimes the ground is already very firm, but if it's less firm & especially if rain makes it soft, your path will eventually sink into it. Then you need to prepare the ground first - e.g. by digging a trench and filling it with sand & gravel and tamping the sand & gravel down firmly. In either case, be generous with the amount of concrete - don't make the path too thin.

The forms come in various patterns. The pattern you saw in the picture is one I used elsewhere in the garden. I sometimes thought a different one would have looked better, but this last couple of years it's begun to grow moss in the crevices & now I've begun to like it - see the left-hand picture. Later I found another form that I like even better - see the right-hand picture.

Herb

Very nicely done! It will only get more graceful with age.

Laura

Hi there Herb!

Long time agio since I visited this site... real life has taken too much of my time.

But now I have some days off, and I decided to poay some attention to my garden.

Very nice gate, last week I managed to finally add a proper wood shingle roof on my gate as well. I will post some pics later

I notice that you haven't been able to find a good lock for your gate either? I wanted the kind of door knob like they have in the US, with a round ball you turn. But it doesn't exist anywhere here in Sweden. I noticed many professional gates in Japan also have this design.

Well, take care and happy gardening!

/henrik

Hi, Henrik,

Nice to hear from you again! The gate does have a small latch, but it's inconspicuous. Here's a picture of it - it's the rusty old latch from the gate as it used to be, but it's simple & it works very well - just push the gate closed & the latch holds it.

I think that the light grey colour of the hinges and the brackets at the bottom of the support posts looks out of place though, so I'm going to paint them dark brown or even black.

I've dug up the Bamboo that was growing next to the gate - not because I didn't like it - I do like it & I've found another place in the garden for it. I did it because I've at last obtained a bit of Black Bamboo & have planted that next to the gate. It'll take a few years to become a decent sized clump but I think it'll then look rather attractive.

Herb

Hi!

That looks great, but I need to be able to open it from both sides. As far as I can see, this can be opened from only one side.

This week I made some minor improvements

* Bought some water plants for the pond

* Added some fresh fern to the tsukubai This area is getting seriously overgrown by the acer palmatum and the
pieris japonicum.

*Added a taxus to my karesansui scene...

I also did lots of pruning on almost all the plants, because this is year 4 of my garden and some plants are growing rather fast... but the ones I want to grow fast, like rhododendron, they grow xtremly slow.

SOme questions for you

* How can I prune a pieris japonicum to make the foilage more dense? The ones I have keep getting "holes" in them. How does these plats grow and how do they respond to pruning? Like azalea or acer?

* Do you know any good sites with chinese pavilion pictures? Basic stuff with curved roofs and non roofed deck and about 15 m2. A friend want me to *try* and make a chinese garden for him. Don't ask me why... but he doesn't like japanese gardens. And he doesn't like japanese tea houses either, he want the curved roof style, and for him japanese teahouses look like shaggy old sheds...

kind regards
Henrik - who will add pics soon!!

"That looks great, but I need to be able to open it from both sides. As far as I can see, this can be opened from only one side. "

You could always drill a hole and attach a pull cord to that hole in the latch and string it through to the other side.

Henrik - Spider has the right idea. It's exactly what I did with the latch on our other gate about 3 years ago & it's still working fine.

I'd better not try to advise you about growing Pieris. All my attempts to grow these have ended in their deaths.

For what looks (to me) to be a somewhat Chinese-looking structure, perhaps this site will interest you - http://www.clovis-rdf.com/Pres/Japo2/index.html

Hi!

Sorry about the pictures, I will add them as soon as I can.

About the Pieris, what kind did you try? I noticed that the "Mountain Fire" are the best and hardiest, and also the prettiest. And there is something "asian/japanese" about this tree, that I can't seem to put my finger on. I really love this plant. I have observed somethings about them

- Like half shade best

- Want the soil fertilized every year.

- respond well to dry conditions I think

- acid lover, same as the acer but not as much as the azalea.

- When they grow bigger, they tend to loose some of the foilage in the bottom thereby creating "holes" in the foilage structure.

What happened to your bushes? I love these, and they look very well in contrast with stone and the red acer palmatum, since both these trees have similar requirements.


That pavilion looks marvellous. I like the bushes around it, that whole garden is like a dream. If only I could find a blueprint hehe.

I have been thinking about the latch, and it should work best if you have only one door, but if you have two doors like I have, I think I will look for something else. All I wanted is a simple door knob that they use in all american tv shows. A round brass knob u turn and then the door open. Should look very nice on these kinds of doors.

Stay tuned for some pics...

/Henrik

I've no idea why our Pieris died - the only things I can think of are some obscure disease or else I'd mistakenly planted them in earth that had previously had bone meal added to it.

Your mention of 'Mountain Fire' reminds me of a similarly named Kalmia - 'Olympic Fire' - quite the best-looking Kalmia I've ever seen.

I'm not sure, but I think that several years ago Clovis posted details of the construction of his pavilion. It might be worthwhile to ask him about it.

Herb

Nice job on the gate.
I may see some construction in my gardens future !