The Garden Gate

What kind of entrance way do you have to your garden?

In last night's adult education class we talked about garden accessories. Little things like bird houses and gazing balls and big things like garden gates and arbors.

One thing I try to stress is the first impression to your garden is an important one. You can have the most glorious garden but if the entrance is blah, then you are battling mightily to change a visitors perception.

In the opening shot here is a grand entrance way at Old Westbury Gardens. When I first started doing this program I'd tell people that this is obviously the entrance to a house but I have to change that thinking. In my neighborhood there has been a slow but steady increase of homes installing these types of grand entrances complete with wrought iron gates.

A simple entranceway I saw on a walk-about in Cape May, New Jersey. I thought this was quite elegant and immediately had you thinking that the garden beyond this gate would also be quite lovely.

If I had time to walk along the streets in our village of Huntington I could shoot hundreds of photos of charming elements. One of the past members of my garden club had this rustic entrance to her garden.

Another garden at Old Westbury, this one is hidden in the back and is a tiny vegetable garden. I love the arbor covered with runner beans and the one-of-a-kind gate.

Up in Boston I visited a botanical garden that didn't have a gate to get into their vegetable plot but these cool blue posts were welcoming enough.

Still in Massachusetts, we walked through this arbor to get into the garden. The home owner even had a mail box with maps of the garden plant material.


Heading down south to the Carolina's, we come across a cool screen door in the middle of a Hosta walk. It was fully functioning, what a fun accent piece!


Finally, close to home, only a block away, I saw this lovely lattice entrance to the garden. At the same time I could hear some barking and when I looked closely I saw the source of the noise.

How's this for an unusual door bell? Ding dong!!!

One thing I haven't included here is photos of gates in my own gardens. They will be coming at some time. In the mean time, I'm having serious deja-vu feelings that I've done this exact posting in the past. I don't know if it's true or if it's because I've done this slide program so often. If this is a re-run, please forgive me and tune in again tomorrow for something new.

Right now I've got a car chock full of plants to plant. Last night's class was such fun because not only did we do the slide program, we were able to look at lots and lots of plants. Thanks to some wonderful help up at the school I was able to transport a number of pots and clumps of perennials to the classroom. I do admit I felt a bit funny potting up some of those weeds. What a waste of potting soil :-)

Off to dig, even in the rain...

Melanie