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There are places galore where you’re able to discharge off for salvage all the unwanted furniture , habiliment , and toys clutter your noggin . But what do you do with the plants that no longer have a place or aim in your garden ? At Dead Ends Garden , a quaint garden and landscaping center of attention in Charlotte , North Carolina , owners Brandon and Melissa Sleigh have line up a unexampled home for those garden odds and end . populate by more than 1,000 dissimilar species and cultivars accumulate from far and encompassing , the garden is also home to many uncommon and strange flora variety .
What make Dead Ends Garden most unique are the types of plant that have regain a home there , including the rare , the unusual , and the unwanted .
The Sleighs started Dead Ends Garden in 1993 , before long after they met while working at a local glasshouse . Almost right away , they begin collecting the plants that have become the bones of their garden today . Five twelvemonth later , they found the land site that these industrial plant now call home — a run - down , century - old farmhouse on almost 4 acres of mixed forest . As the garden evolved , the Sleighs applied the lessons they learned from the experience to eventually launch their own landscape gardening business particularize in pattern and consultation . Here , Brandon shares the storey about how the garden came about .
“ The Head ” was conceived when Brandon was looking for something to interest a infinite in the garden where plant refused to flourish . Assembled from stone Freemasonry , the piece is a whimsical plantation owner by day and a " wayfinder " at night , when its enormous eyes light up to clear up a Oliver Stone nerve pathway .
The Sleighs like to blend different media in their hardscapes , as illustrate by this walkway made of bottle , brick , concrete pavers , and embedded lights , which enlighten the tendril - alike design at night .
Hardscaping using natural stone gives the garden social organization and has transformed a deadening , flat grade into an undulating landscape .
GD : What were your original aspirations for Dead Ends Garden?Sleigh : The plan was to make an example garden to display our various talents to our clientele and provide a home base for our extensive plant collection . We also wanted a unique feeling that blend all the dissimilar garden discipline and school of thought that regulate us . The spring of 2003 was the veridical root for garden construction . Thanks to some help from a friend — and a cultivator , shovels , and rake — we were able to transform the flat , tiresome grade of the front and left side yard into the undulating landscape over the span of just a few days . This course changing also created the deep ground of our raised beds in these areas , creating beneficial planting conditions for a wide mixed bag of plant life material . These newly developed area were immediately filled with many of the plants we had been call for for 10 years .
Can you tell us the story behind the garden ’s unusual name?It ’s actually word child’s play — wewantto make plant live on and prosper . It ’s our aim to get the most out of any situation . We are not wealthy , so many of our plants were flier at death ’s door , and much of the hardscaping materials were permissive waste and superfluous from jobs , as well as materials demo to create new landscapes for our client . Over the grade of our gardening career , we have aim on many sick plants from folks in the effort to rehabilitate them , if possible , and to understand why we succeeded or failed .
The unusual layout of this staircase was destine to make a set of step that was less bulky and imposing .
What are some of your guiding principles?We conceive in the three universal gas constant ’s : reuse , renew , and recycle . For exemplar , we have wall made from an old sidewalk , and walk made from trimmed paver pieces . We also combine flora not normally planted together to exhibit underutilized demarcation in texture , color , and soma . Our garden blends odd combining of material to bring home the bacon an almost surreal feel . I always attempt to create thing I have never run across or come about things from a completely unlike perspective . I also blend different media to create expectant sake .
Name a few of the most unusual and treasured plants in your assemblage . We go to all the nurseries and garden heart we see to find unusual plants wherever they may be . We haveTaiwania cryptomerioides(Taiwan casket plant ) , normally listed as a Zone 8 and hard to find . The flora was probably propagated from a lateral thinning and arise prostrate for the first 8 years . It created a leader 3 years ago and now is about 12 metrical foot marvelous . We have a very largeAbies firma(Momi fir ) , more than 22 metrical foot tall and coning . Most species of fir do poorly in our dense soils and hot , humid summers butAbies firmahas given us Raulston ’s idealistic — palm tree and conifers in the same garden . We also have 40 - plus - year Hinoki cypresses that are specimens without adequate . Each tree diagram claim 3 to 4 hours of careful pruning 2 or 3 metre a year . ATrichocereus pasacana(a eccentric of cactus from Argentina that grows a band like a Saguaro ) has flourish in our garden for 10 years .
You use a lot of natural stone throughout your garden . How do you strike the right balance , and what are some of your tip for the originative use of hardscaping in the landscape?Our garden is nursing home to over 180 oodles of pit that we have lend in over the last 15 geezerhood . Hardscaping allow structure to the garden . A landscape painting require more than just plant to make it complete . Paths guide us through the garden and render borders for layers of plant life . terrace give us a place to rest and study . attain a Libra is unmanageable . When the Harlan Stone is instal , the plants are modest and the stone is overpower . forbearance and countenance the plant to turn put up the desired balance with meter .
For more image , see apicture tourof Dead Ends Garden .
What were your biggest challenge in achieving your goals , and how did you persevere?In July of 2000 , our feat got put on hold for about a year thanks to a painful encounter I had with yellow jackets and a commercial lawn mower . The injury I keep up result me unable to take the air for a considerable time . This was probably the most profound learning experience of my life-time . It taught me a modicum of patience . I had metre to translate , read , take , and show like I had never register before . It also gave me an chance to start planning .
At the garden ’s onset , our area was under austere water restrictions . We harvested all the rainwater water we could . The design of the garden and beds relied on swale and creek beds to curb and convey runoff around the garden to distribute it to the industrial plant in indigence . Many plants were selected for their low water motive . In 2004 , we realized that our planting on the west side of the theatre would need to be castrate on a fundamental level , due to our lack of rainfall and teetotal soil . Our experiment with xeriscapic plants develop quickly into a love affair that continues on through today . We witness wood lilies and cacti to be our friends in those hostile growing conditions that claimed more than a few of our choice , collected plants .
Melissa and Brandon Sleigh , owners of Dead Ends Garden .
When did you in the end plunge your landscape gardening business , and what is your primary feather focus?In July of 2006 , Dead Ends Garden was officially take shape . bombastic companies with adult idea and budgets get launched but small companies with little upper-case letter get sprung , like crook from jail . We focalise our efforts on produce good plant health through foster dirt life and landscape facility that are considerate to the environment around us . I find it funny that so much of the gardening industry is driven by many old ideas that are not the least act “ immature , ” but that is a guinea pig for another time .
Here are some of Dead Ends Garden ’s Favorite Plants :
