Success in a small garden requires attention to detail.
There’s a darling small formal garden in Atlanta that I was lucky enough to visit during September, which is filled to the brim with tiny vignettes of carefully manicured and perfectly planned spaces and then the very special surprise just when you think you have seen the whole garden, a most enchanting knot garden.
A folly of carefully clipped spheres
This captivating garden owned and generously shared by Mary Wayne Dixon was just superb. A commitment to establishing a knot garden is significant, I always admire the patience of the Master Gardener who takes care of these features in botanical gardens but to contemplate and then successfully execute creating and maintaining one in your own home garden is quite an undertaking.
This is not just any knot garden it actually takes up most of the open space in the rear of the property and it is clipped to perfection and oh so delightful. It’s in 3D and very cleverly done using variegated and non-variegated plants all in great health and clipped flawlessly.
I loved the tree Vitex agnus-castus in the front garden almost as much as the bees did on this late summer afternoon, it was lush and healthy and just covered in blooms.
The espalier in the walled courtyard was absolutely stunning-check out how well it has been trained…now that’s disciplined gardening.
Boy oh Boy, they do things well in the USA and styling is one of them, I absolutely loved the styling of the back porch/garden room, everything was just positioned in the most exquisite way. How alluring is this space? Wouldn’t you just love to sit here on a Hotlanta afternoon with a nice cool glass of something and a few cheese straws to nibble on? I know I sure would!
This neighborhood was absolutely lovely, even the roundabout (which took our coach a very long time to negotiate) had seating for people to enjoy and come together as a community. I love that idea.
Late season flowering hydrangeas reminded us that Summer was not quite finished yet.
Have you ever tried to create a knot garden?
How ever did you manage to get a photo of that knot garden without a single garden writer in it?? It was a garden writer magnet when I was there. Kudos.
Sometimes you just get lucky 😉