Vintage Charm: Creating Period Garden Styles
Much of Flea Market Gardening style is that of the old and time-worn. We have decided that we like the cast-off, ever-lasting and quality of yesterday when it comes to garden decoration. The flowers we choose are the ones our mothers had, or our grandparents had, …ones that bring back sweet memories. Learn from our gardeners how to achieve this look in your garden in this three part series.
Jackie Greenfield’s classic picket fence and ruby red Monarda, or Bee Balm
Part Two
As much as possible in a vintage style garden, the look is ancient, as if the gardener was long gone and the garden fallen abandoned. Furniture like chairs and bench are left with chipped paint and containers rust in the blazing sun. Sturdy plant survivors like iris, day lilies and daffodils wave in a cool evening breeze. Paths are a bit overgrown and the style is cottage gardens gone a bit wild.
A shed of any age, hung with old galvanized tubs and a vintage washer in Tony Johnson’s garden with Spiky Cleome
Audrey Osborn’s charming vintage flower bed
Someone in Rebecca Spencer’s garden has hung a quilt for airing,..picking up the fragrance of the nearby rose. An old motel chair has the perfect patina.
Mary Leaon ‘dresses’ up her vintage style potting table with all the details of a 40s kitchen
Barbara Stanley’s English cottage garden with blue salvia and foxglove
A kind of deep peace settles on the garden and pervades in to quiet your mind and Still, solid garden design elements are there. Focal points, winding paths and plants placed from tall to small in the slightly unkempt beds. A few reeds of tall grassy weeds are allowed to stay and thrive, never over growing the colorful flowers.
Kim Trudo’s milk wire crate with vintage bottles and faux sunflowers
Carol Ross’s pink rose covered archway could exist in any decade.
Kim Trudo’s porch with a chippy white trellis and an old window made from a door!
Catharine Robertson-Lepage’s old-fashioned petuniabasket echoes the wooden fish trap nestled in the lush greenery
Julian Rodriguez’s aging filigreed metal benches provide a respite from gardening chores.
Nothing of the present day appears and the age of the garden is obscure. Vintage artifacts stand where they could 75 years ago, accented by flowers which somehow made their way in to take root.
Donna Anderson’s pot lady, sits on a worn wooden chair surrounded by soft flowers, sea holly, petunias, daisies and a moss rose hat.
A treasured copper watering can, a stone-like concrete bench and an ornate gate combine in this vignette. Santa Barbara daisy grows below
Jeanne Sammons’s hollyhocks and birdhouses by an old tree.
Catch up on Part one:
Creating a vintage style garden
