An amazing selection of fall blooming perennials (50% off!) at David Hunter Garden Centre allowed me to make up some stunning containers. I combined tall, red Carex buchanii (New Zealand sedge) with two varieties of Heuchera; ‘Dolce Peach Melba’ and ‘Velvet Night,’ Ophiogogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ (Black Mondo grass), Bracteantha bracteata ‘Sundaze Golden Beauty,’ Capsicum annuum […]
Perennials
Mmm… rotting flesh
Plants that smell like rotting flesh to attract pollinators include the dragon arum (Dracunculus vulgaris), which has a burgundy leaf-like flower out of which flows a slender, black appendage. The plant is native to the Mediterranean, but this one “showed up one day” in the Bronx, New York, garden of Rosemarie Dieda. The plant was […]
Fall colour
If your beds are looking a little forelorn right now, it’s time to reassess your fall garden. Plant some fall-blooming perennials, grasses, or cool-season annuals. Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan) is one of my fall favourites, as is Colchicum:
I love grass no. 2
I love the simple drama of this Crescent Beach garden; there’s only, as far as I can tell, three types of plants used here. I could never be that restrained. Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’ (Maiden grass) is in the background, Pennisetum villosum (Feathertop) is in the mid-ground, and there’s another grass in the foreground that I […]
The Buckland’s UBC garden — with cat.
Their’s was one garden on the last tour I went on and I thought this was a cool photo. A showpiece of beauty, design, and ingenuity, Jennifer Buckland’s UBC garden makes for an envy-inspiring visit. The scent of a large, white-flowering magnolia welcomes you to the front garden, where purple clematis intertwines with a red-flowered […]
Powerful Plants for Low-Maintenance Areas
Perennials Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s Mantle) Zone 4 Erysimum ‘Bowles’ Mauve’ (Shrubby Wallflower) Zone 6 Geranium macrorrhizum (Bigroot Cranesbill) Zone 2 Shrubs Hydrangea (Hardiness varies according to variety) Lonicera purpusii (Winter-flowering honeysuckle) (Zone 5) Nandina domestica (Heavenly Bamboo) (Zone 7) Viburnum (Zone 3)