Dallas Open Day (part 5) - the Middleton garden

This is the last of a series about my trip to Dallas last weekend to attend the Garden Conservancy's Dallas Open Day garden tour.

(click here to start from the beginning)

This home was listed as the Middleton "farm" (which almost made me not visit it), but I thought this had the most pleasant style of the entire group of gardens. I asked the homeowner why she had it listed as a farm and she said she couldn't think of what else to call it.

Let's see what you think: farm or not a farm?

Here's what I saw walking up the driveway:

You can click to make any of the photos larger.

The plant to the left with red flowers is a yucca, one of many I saw in the Dallas area. 

When I got into the backyard, I found these cheery pots of mint and flowers on the patio:

Across the pool from them was a lovely stone wall with a rosemary border.

If you keep going to the left, they have a chicken coop in the shade of a huge tree, which was where all the children were. I didn't take photos because it was too shady to do so, but their chickens seemed as neat and well-behaved as the rest of the yard.

As I continued to my right around the pool, I came to another area of the yard:

This reminded me of a hotel patio ... it was so beautiful and relaxing. Here are some closer views of the raised beds:

Behind the chairs were mounds of basil, with squash behind them (might have been zucchini) and peach trees next to the fence.

If you continue on past the chairs, you see this!

It took me a moment to realize that this was asparagus! I have never seen anyone make a hedge out of asparagus before. This was gorgeous ... reminds me a bit of weeping willows. Behind the asparagus were peach and apricot trees, and in front of the asparagus they had placed 4" wire mesh to keep it upright. The effect was spectacular -- I bet this is even lovelier when the red berries form on these in the fall.

Turning completely around you see another area of the yard:






















I really like the way they used these fig trees, especially in the second photo.

Moving back towards the right, I saw yet another ingenious edible hedge:

Instead of trellising their grapevines lower, they used them to top a denser hedge and show them off at the same time. I loved this!

Next to the house they had this wonderful outdoor dining area, covered in grapevines.

Simply breathtaking.

This was by far my favorite on the tour, both for the variety of plants and the quality of the garden design.

So that was my day! I had a great time, and will definitely do something like this again. I'll leave you with the last two photos I took at the Middleton "farm" front pond.