Monica's Ann Arbor Suburban Cottage Garden

Name: Monica Milla

Website: Garden Faerie's Musings
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan (zone 6a)

Size: 1/2 acre

Age: 8 years

Bio: I'm a master gardener and master composter who enjoys getting people excited about gardening. I'm the author of Fun with Winter Seed Sowing and often speak to community and gardening groups. I teach adult enrichment classes at Washtenaw Community College, and will soon be garden blogging for AnnArbor.com. I'm currently volunteering at Kempf House to restore a historic home's garden to the 1890s-1920s period.  I've previously created a garden for cats living in a cat retirement community at For The Love of Cats in Lodi Township, and an 1860s fountain garden at Cobblestone Farm. I also stewarded a native plant demonstration garden for Ann Arbor Parks.

Survey

Type: Backyard (organic veggies, ornamentals, and shrubs)

Style: Cottage garden or suburban wilderness. I like a riotous mixture of colors, textures, sizes, and types of plants. Anything goes, and I can find a place for anything, even if it involves some garden chess (a series of moving plants around).

Inspiration: Nature and art, and a need to play in the soil.

Favorite Plant: I could narrow down to 10: chokeberry, 'Olga's Round Yellow Chicken' tomato, rattlesnake master, coral bells, black cohosh, Jupiter's beard, gaillardia, ninebark, viburnum, love-in-a-mist, and hollyhock.

Biggest Challenge: Buckthorn, groundhogs, raccoons, poison ivy, heavy clay, morning shade/intense afternoon sun, and a tangle of huge tree roots.

What Friends Say: "{Insert expletive here}, your garden is huge!" (Maybe this is in contrast to my tiny house.)

Biggest Embarrassment: Knee-high dandelions and other weeds that could strangle small pets and children.

Proudest DIY: My two rain barrels and my compost bin. As Red Green says, "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!" Or something like that.

Biggest Indulgence: A winding brick pathway is by orders of magnitude my biggest splurge! I'm notoriously cheap but I've enjoyed this path every single day for 7 years.

Best Advice: Know yourself and plant what you like. Colors you like, veggies you like, forms you like. Don't go by the latest craze, but aim to please yourself. It's your garden. For new gardeners, start small--you don't want to get overwhelmed and there's always plenty of time to become crazy-addicted later! You also don't need a lot of gadgets or tools; a few things do 90% of all the work. Don't be afraid to get started, just do it.

Dream Source: Let me loose with a shovel at Monticello!

Resources: Coleman's Farm Market, Lowe's, Home Depot, Bordine's, Telly's  (also garage sales, plant and seed swaps, thrift stores, and my friend's gardens!) 

Garden Tour

If you would like to participate in the Virtual Garden Tour, please email me at myskinnygarden (at) yahoo (dot) com.