Weekend TeaDays 11/13-14/10 Garden of Influence?

[Chip]

Greetings everyone and welcome to a TeaRoom Weekend on TeaDay. Please stop in and share what is in your cup throughout the weekend.

Friday we discussed whether we would brew a superlative tea w/o the "proper TeaPot." You can still vote and discuss Friday's topic.

This weekend's TeaRoom topic. Seems Winter will be here soon, which made me look back to summer, and gardens. First, are you a gardener? Secondly what kind of garden do you enjoy most?

I am looking forward to sharing this weekend's TeaRoom TeaDays with everyone. Bottoms up.

[Herb_Master]

Yes, I dabble a bit

a bit of everything

quite a few herbs

back boundary was supposed to be nature's bounty - cherries. hazel nuts, sloes, quince and damsons

but the cherries turned out to be flowering and the squirrels eat all my nuts

[JRS22]

I'm more of a garden observer. I have a small yard - 13 x 40 feet - and years ago I had an agoraphobic dog. She preferred the yard to the street, but when she saw someone in a neighboring yard she would jump about excitedly and squash the flowers. So we planted blackberry bushes with thorns, and she stayed off them. Ginger passed away years ago, but the bushes matured and when we beat the squirrels to them we have quite a blackberry harvest.

In my cup this morning - I feel like trying some more puerh samples today. I might just reach into my sample box and try whatever ends up in my hand. At a minimum they're all interesting.

[Trey Winston]

I like to observe cottage gardens, I guess. Although I find Asian gardens fascinating too.

Oolong Saturday today.

[artmom]

Cottage gardens are my favorite. I love a riot of flowers, shrubs, small trees, etc.

I no longer garden; did enjoy planting annuals and pruning my trees.

No Tea yet this morning; but I'm a bit chilly, so I think I'll have a nice cup of Golden Lion assam. I've been using up some of my older samples lately, just to cut down on storage space.

[AdamMY]

If I ever end up owning land I will surely like to garden, though I have yet to think of a style or type.

My First tea of the day:

[iannon]

sweet pieces there Adam,
We keep a vegetable and herb garden here...nothing too big but gives us some noce veggies..organic and local

[Mrs. Chip]

sweet pieces there Adam.

+1! Great shot, I remember how beautiful that houjin was in person Adam!

I love to garden, I grew up in the nursery business so of course I am very fond of foliage of all types. From an early age, I learned everything from tilling the soil, to planting seeds, to pruning evergreens and landscaping.

I have had a multitude of herb gardens that eventually moved into potted herbs that made their home in the winter months in our greenhouse. Some of our rosemary topiaries were taller than me! At one time Chip and I had well over 40 varieties! Also many lovely lavendars, thymes and lemon verbena.

When we first moved into our 1840's stone house, we planted a lovely cottage garden in what was the front lawn. No grass to mow, just flowers to admire.

However, my taste has definitely gravitated toward Asian themed gardens complete with waterfalls and koi ponds. A fave around here of course is Japanese Maples and also numerous varieties of Beech trees.

Chip is a master at pruning and keeps our maples looking very 'Bonsaish/Asiatic'. Although sometimes I still cringe when he gets out the lopers, his vision for the tree is always years ahead of mine, and of course he is always right!

[laura99]

I don't have the time like I used to, but I still enjoy gardening. Herbs, vegetables and flowers in our gardens. The vegetables have become a bit frustrating though. We went on the smaller side, with a focus on tomatoes and peppers, and this year the squirrels stole all the tomatoes! But we are still picking peppers (green/red/hot/sweet) even after two hard frosts. I am trying to populate a problem bank with mints to hopefully use for tea next year!

I love Asian gardens, and have some elements in ours, like maples and a fish pond, but nothing like the real thing. Visiting a Japanese garden is always a wonderful experience!

Chip is a master at pruning and keeps our maples looking very 'Bonsaish/Asiatic'.

This is something I need to learn! I have one maple that is growing out of control, and I am terrified to prune it.

[msurads06]

I enjoy gardening. My favorite is probably vegetable gardening, the things that come out of the garden taste SO much better than the grocery store. I also have some rose bushes and other flowers in the front yard that i enjoy.

Rishi puerh this morning, not really a fan of shu, but I am not allowed to make any more tea orders til after christmas so i have to use what i have and it is somewhat easier to work with when i am at work.

[entropyembrace]

Yes, I garden a bit...I have a mixed garden with vegetables, herbs, flowers, trees, shrubs and bushes...but I´m not good at keeping it weeded

Here´s a picture of some of the flowers I had in the back yard this summer to brighten the teaday

[nickE]

Awesome photo, Entropy!

My family had quite the tomato garden this summer. Beefsteak, roma, and cherry. I didn't do much work, though... (except for the eating part).

Last 4g of the grade 1 TGY from OTTI 6 today. Very satisfying!

[debunix]

For much of the last decade, most of my gardening was underwater (aquariums)--but those are presently at a low ebb, in part because the house I'm renting has a good amount of planted ground to tend. I've got some old decorative hedges and flowering trees, fruit trees (fig, avocado, citrus), a handful of herbs, and am trying to put in more native plants to cut down on maintenance time.

Some of the plants are quite lovely. This year the proteas bloomed for the first time



and I finally caught my night-blooming cereus on film


And the fig tree can be very generous




But lovely as the wisteria is


Few things make me as happy as a home-grown poppy


No tea in my cup yet today, trying to decide between a young puerh and a new-to-me green tea.

[entropyembrace]

wow debunix those figs look delicious! I wish I could grow them here but the climate is far too cold.

I do get little boxes of organic figs imported from California at the grocery store when they´re in season.

[Herb_Master]

Chip is a master at pruning and keeps our maples looking very 'Bonsaish/Asiatic'. Although sometimes I still cringe when he gets out the lopers, his vision for the tree is always years ahead of mine, and of course he is always right!

I am clueless about pruning, and one of my maples died last year.

This year another maple had a leading stem on which the leaves died on the topmosdt forks and the stem changed to a lighter colour in June, in July this seemed to have spread down the stem to a double sized portion, by August it had spread even further down.

Now all other leaves have fallen off but the withered leaves on the affected area remain. The lightened coloration of bark is now down to about 2cm from the MAIN stem.

Should I chop this off now, lest this problem spreads to the whole tree?