Verbosity alert! This won't make sense if you don't read the whole thing, though, so do try and soldier on ;D.
Last November, I decided I had to do something about my garden. In 2007, my daughter Kate was married in the garden and we made it all flowery and weddingy and it really did look wonderful.
But in the past three years, it lost definition and became sort of blowsy and disconnected. It definitely wasn't 'me.'
What to do? I sought and found inspiration from garden magazines and books, from some French garden designers who figured out a way to use elements from formal French gardens in a new way, a more casual and fun way. I decided to try that approach myself.
I pared and pared and pared down. I turned my two parterres into grids, planted with an emphasis on form, foliage, and texture.
Redesigned garden, newly installed, April 2010: 
I removed lots of flowering things from my borders and added pyramidal, round, and columnar boxwoods. Between these, I replanted some of my old phlox, irises, roses, peonies and added alliums and other stuff---vertical, exuberant things that would play off against the evergreen topiaries. I designed a new path to replace the old mulch one, too.
Redone garden, May 2010: 
So, I'm back again with a new garden. There's lots of brown dirt out there, but the garden will mature, the brown dirt will recede into the past soon enough.
Most wonderful of all, I'm leaving Sunday to make a pilgrimage to some gardens in Normandy, those that inspired me to redo my own garden. I'm going to sketch and sketch and take it all in and be more and more inspired, so come back and be inspired (I hope), too! See you soon!
Love the redo Laura!! thanks for showing us the before and after -- I'm looking forward to more photos as the seasons progress
Posted by: Judybec | June 05, 2010 at 01:44 PM
I love all your happy comments! I have gotten SO much inspiration from seeing the gardens in Normandy I came to see---I will be sure to post photos and sketches from my garden as it develops over the next year. Thanks for taking time to respond to what I'm working on!
Posted by: Laura | May 30, 2010 at 03:44 PM
Wow! I am amazed at your bravery for tackling the editing process in your garden! Thanks for a demo of how to push through with a vision and here is to gentle rains and sun in the right spots and amounts.
Posted by: Carole Buschmann | May 30, 2010 at 12:38 PM
You've made some incredible work on this garden!! I'm impressed!
Great news also about these garden sketches to come! Enjoy your trip!
Posted by: Cathy | May 27, 2010 at 03:26 AM
It looks lovely-a nice place to go to to read or paint.
Posted by: Linda | May 25, 2010 at 12:29 AM
I love gardens, and yours really IS you...
Posted by: Cathy Johnson (Kate) | May 24, 2010 at 08:17 PM