Designing with Color

Thank you to Julie Rubaud and her team at Red Wagon Plants for having me teach Next Level Seminar: Designing With Color in the new workshop space at the nursery - it was very hot but we had fun understanding how colors work together or contrast, how to add colors we love to our gardens (including vegetable gardens) and learning about plants that provide outstanding visual interest throughout the year. The handout was a plant list organized by color - if you’d like a copy, send me an email and I’ll get it to you.

We used paint chips and catalogs to cut and paste collages, then added notes. These pages are useful in planning new beds or borders, when we want to renovate existing gardens, or just to experiment and it’s fun to combine images in this way, overlapping, moving things around to visually see what combinations we like (easier than digging up plants and moving them).

The student above clearly loves pink, orange, purple. Some of her choices include clematis, Japanese maple, coneflower, beebalm, spirea, and the South African torch lily (Kniphofia spp.).

Paint chips are easy guides to work with.

Above: Other selections here include a heuchera with red veined leaves, drumstick allium, a red-tipped miscanthus, and an oakleaf hydrangea shrub with a creamy white flower (Hydrangea quercifolia ‘Gatsby Moon’, USDA Zone 5-9).

Below: This student made a spring garden with vivid orange daffodils but likes cooler tones for summer with icy yellows and chartreuse, purple, and a little deep blue.

What colors move you? Instead of just flipping the pages of a catalog, cut it apart and make your own combinations that please your eye. This is a great activity for winter when we’re starved for color and need inspiration for the season ahead.

A Garden for Bees

I just gave a slide talk called Attracting Bees and Butterflies at the Horticulture, Education and Research Center at the University of Vermont in South Burlington which focused on the development of a Pollinator Garden which I’ve been involved in for a couple years. The talk showed the progress of this project from site work to installation and showed many of the beneficial plants that form the collection; afterward I led participants around the garden to look at both individual plants and at how they were arranged and grouped in the borders.

In late Fall the garden is at its peak with asters, anise hyssop, sweet coneflower, sedum, helenium, coneflower, goldenrod, and a variety of grasses which give bulk and texture to the borders.

This summer we had unusually hot weather and a long drought and it was evident which perennials suffered - those that prefer moist soils looked the worst (Joe Pye weed, swamp milkweed, monarda) - let’s see if they come back next spring.

The Pollinator Garden is a project of the Friends of the Horticulture Farm, a non-profit organization that helps support the collections at the HREC (known as the Hort. Farm). Since its redesign in 2014 I’ve been a volunteer consultant helping to manage the garden which was designed as an Outdoor Classroom. I love being part of the VT Master Gardener work days and teaching others about ecological landscaping. My good friend Sarah Salatino at Full Circle Gardens has continued to be a resource for this garden and has introduced me to many new native plants.

Fall asters are peaking now - and what a great source of food for butterflies and bees!

Courtyard Gardens of Paris

I co-led a couple garden tours to Paris and wrote about them for HOUZZ (see link at bottom of post). While Paris in late April isn’t too different in temperature from northern New England, its cultural sights and historic parks and gardens offer endless inspiration (and there’s always a cafe within a short walk). If you’re going, here are three of my favorite spots.

Above: the Petit Palais in the 8th Arrondissement is easy to get to from the Champs-Elysees Clemenceau metro stop. On the Ave. Winston Churchill, it sits directly opposite the Grand Palais, and it’s an art museum with a courtyard garden that makes you feel like you’ve escaped the city.

Above: The enclosed garden shows a flush of new growth in April. Set in a formal courtyard with ornate mosaic tiled pools, the planting design is loose and billowy with mounds of euphorbia, large leaved bergenia, and a mix of ornamental grasses which have been left standing over the winter and now will be cut back for the season. Reflections in the shallow pools give an Impressionistic feel.

Look at the mosaics!

Formality and modernism mix in this space surrounded by stone colonnades, classical sculpture, and ornate architectural detail. Foliage and form catch my eye and I love the verticality of the trees amid pillows of puffy chartreuse spurge (Euphorbia spp.). There’s also a big difference in light levels and heat intensity. You can take shelter in the mosaic tiled spaces that surround the open garden and enjoy a cup of coffee from the cafe.

Below: The Musee Carnavalet in the Marais (4th Arrondissement) on the Rue des Francs is a favorite spot to escape the crowds. Plantings change seasonally.

The Musee Carnavalet is a complex of mansions combined into the Paris History Museum in the Marais quarter. There are a couple different interior spaces to explore, each framed with boxwood parterres and filled in spring with the whiff of early roses which benefit from the hot microclimate of the stone buildings. Lovely and romantic.

Above: And now for something completely different - near the banks of the Seine, the landscape at the Musee Branly designed by Gilles Clement is wild and rugged with all sorts of interesting shrubs and grasses planted en masse outside of a modern building. Parts of the building are covered in a vertical green wall designed by Patrick Blanc in 2004. Lots to experience here - I was happy upon seeing our U.S. native oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) doing so well in the middle of Paris! Every detail of this garden catches the eye. Small kids will feel engulfed in the greenery; you almost get tricked into thinking you’re not really in the city. These shots were taken in mid-July when things were flush and the hydrangeas in bloom.

For more about Paris here’s my article on Springtime in Paris for HOUZZ.

Color Focus: Blue

Who doesn’t love blue? Flowers that mimic the dawn sky or the Caribbean can cool the eye in a woodland while others bring a stunning vitality to full sun gardens and containers. I have photo folder called Blue made up of garden scenes that highlight blue, blue plants - and even outdoor furniture in blue shades. Here are some favorite blues from my garden…

Above: Scilla is a tiny bulb (corm) that’s commonly called wood squill as they naturalize in shady areas and do well in woodland settings - they emerge before the tree canopy so can maximize the light conditions. They’re very small so I like to plant them in clumps to get a bigger effect. Note the purplish stems and the deeper blue striations on the backs of the petals. These bloom in very early spring.

Grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) is a really electric blue that borders on purple - a must for walkways in sunny spots. Muscari are deer resistant, attract early pollinators, and have a very mild scent - and they’re good for making windowsill arrangements in jelly jars. I grow them with variegated Heuchera ‘Green Spice’ in amongst peonies. After blooming cut stems back; the strappy foliage will persist through the summer and fall. Plant in the fall and buy in large quantities - they’re inexpensive and easy to grow.

Ipomea ‘Heavenly Blue’

Above: For a couple years I grew this morning glory on the vegetable garden fence and enjoyed its riotous behavior but soon tired of its prolific self seeding (all morning glory vines are prolific self sowers). ‘Heavenly Blue’ lives up to its name though - and each flower has a white-cream-yellow eye that brings bees into the pollen-rich center. Good for arbors, fences, and tuteurs.

Clematis vine with a good combination of blue and purple

Above: Clematis is another genus with good color options. Usually grown as a climbing vine, there are many shrub forms (called bush clematis) that are cold-hardy. I’m intrigued by this cultivar offered by Bluestone Perennials called ‘Mrs. Robert Brydon’ with its cloud of smaller blue and white flowers and easy care. Have mail ordered it and will try in the border.

Salvia ‘Victoria’ in the vegetable garden

Above: The longest lasting blue in my gardens every year - Salvia farinacea ‘Victoria’ (mealy cup sage). Planted in early June and cut throughout the growing season, it will continue to bloom until frost. Love this one in combination with orange marigolds.

Ageratum ‘Blue Horizon’

Another annual that I usually always make room for - floss flower (Ageratum houstonianum); look for it at garden centers in 4” pots and transplant to a sunny border or container. This is a really long-bloomer if kept deadheaded and it also makes a cheerful cut flower that looks great with zinnias of all colors. There are many cultivars, ‘Blue Horizon’ has been around a while. I’ve also grown ‘Artist Blue’ and found it kept producing until frost in my USDA Zone 5 garden.

Gardens of Spain

Traveling and seeing gardens always brings inspiration. I'm currently immersed in photos of the Alhambra (Grenada) and the Royal Alcazar (Seville), two palace gardens which I visited on a trip in 2017.

Spain's gardens and courtyards are full of glazed tile - walls, fountains, benches, floors - even doorways have intricate and fanciful designs. Tiles from the 17th-19th centuries predominately feature a rich shade of royal blue that mixes beautifully with pots of orange and lemon trees and cools the eye in hot temperatures. Fountains or water basins are another major design feature.

Water is everywhere, bringing tranquillity and sound - small pools, trickling fountains, marble basins. This is the main element in all the outdoor spaces. The Alhambra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was my favorite place to explore. It's the most important of all the royal palace gardens and a must-see for its many rooms spread out over a large complex of palace buildings on a hillside overlooking Granada.

Views over the palace grounds and ramparts, Alhambra, Granada

These are some of the oldest gardens I've visited (some dating to 11th c.). and I found myself transported through time. Are there design lessons here? Absolutely. The pleasing combination of elements can be reinterpreted easily if you're looking to create a peaceful haven on a patio or backyard.

Classic Elements

• walls (enclosure, privacy)

• water (sound, light, focal point)

• scented plants (sensory/tactile, mood)

To get the look of a classic Spanish courtyard, use vertical surfaces for climbing vines (roses, clematis, honeysuckle, English ivy) and add a fountain and some glazed blue containers filled with mint and scented geranium (pelargonium), lemon verbena, and colorful marigolds... Tapas anyone?  

Winterberry

With a little planning, it’s possible to have bold, beautiful red in the garden year-round. What a difference color makes during the colder months, when there’s little to catch the eye. If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to improve outdoor spaces or want to design a winter garden, think about adding a group of winterberry shrubs. It's a U.S. native species with several cultivars to choose from, many developed at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. Here are two favorites that grow in my Vermont garden. 

During the summer these multi-stemmed shrubs blend into the background; with mid-green foliage they add bulk to a sunny woodland border edge. I've located several plants just off our driveway against a background of evergreen cedars. It's a pop of color that says "welcome home." 

Sparkleberry Winterberry
(Ilex ‘Sparkleberry’)
 

Origin: This is the female cultivar of the eastern U.S. native.
Where it will grow: Hardy to -20 degrees Fahrenheit (USDA zones 5 to 9; find your zone)
Water requirement: Medium to wet soil
Light requirement: Full sun to partial shade
Mature size: 5 to 9 feet tall
Benefits and tolerances: Tolerates wet soils; attracts birds

This cultivar produces bright red fruits that attract birds during winter. Plant with Ilex ‘Apollo’ (the male cultivar) for the best fruit set. Use it as a small tree if space is limited.

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Winter Red Winterberry
(Ilex verticillata ‘Winter Red’)

Origin: This is the female cultivar of the eastern U.S. native.
Where it will grow: Hardy to -40 degrees Fahrenheit (zones 3 to 9)
Water requirement: Medium to wet soil
Light requirement: Full sun to partial shade
Mature size: 6 to 8 feet tall
Benefits and tolerances: Adapted to swamps and wetlands; attracts birds

This is a better selection for gardeners in cold regions — and it’s more compact. The male cultivar for this plant is I. ‘Southern Gentleman’. It makes for an eye-catching border and is very low maintenance.

For winter containers branches of winterberry holly look fantastic mixed with pine boughs, fir tips and other evergreens, and they last a long time indoors, too.

In the landscape birds will eat the red berries — watch for robins, cardinals, juncoes, grosbeaks and cedar waxwings.
 

VonTrapp Gardens

My article about von Trapp Greenhouse gardens was the cover story in this month’s issue of the American Horticultural Society’s magazine - it was such an honor to share the story of how owners Tobi and Sally von Trapp came to create their abundant displays overlooking the Green Mountains in Waitsfield, Vermont.

The garden is set behind the greenhouse and retail area. Go straight back and make time to wander through to look at everything; staff are very helpful. You’ll get ideas about plant combinations and be inspired by the tapestry of colors on view. A must-see for gardeners in the Northeast!