Isola Madre

If you’ve ever been on a European garden tour you know that for gardeners it’s the perfect way to travel – a great mix of cities, villages and glorious gardens, with garden-lovers as your travel companions (hardy souls that we are).

Or so I’ve been told, never having taken a garden tour myself, thanks to a nongardening husband (or two).  But here’s a tour that even nongardening companions would enjoy – the Gardens and Villlas of the Italian Lakes.  The dates of the tour are August 24 through September 2 and highlights include Venice, Murano Island, Doges Palace, Giardino Giusti, Como, Lugano, Switzerland, Bellagio, Stresa, Lake Maggiore, Villa Cicogna Mozzoni, Isola Madre, and Isola Bella.  Most of those names are unfamiliar to me so I went looking for photos and found some.  Now I really want to go.

Collette Vacations is offering $200 off per person if you sign up now.  Here’s the flyer with all the details.  And if you go, take pictures and share them with us!

Venice!

Isola Madre

Bellagio

Alpinum Garden

Isola Madre

Isola Bella

Bellagio

Posted by Susan Harris.  Photo credits:  Bellagio,    Bellagio lake,  Alpinum Garden, Isola Madre, Elephant Ears on Isola Madre, Isola Madre whole island,  Venice,  Isola Bella.

When I reported on my new back garden in late July it looked woefully empty, as shown above.   Patio and walkway done, a few shrubs and trees planted, but otherwise bare.

In this September photo you can see some of the new plantings I’ve added, but they won’t really strut their stuff until next season and won’t really fill out for a season or two.  Patience is required!

Here are the new plants I’ve acquired somehow or other, all plants I expect great things from.  The color palette I’m going for here is purples, maroons, and greens.

Bought perennials

Amsonia hubrichtii- three.  Wish I had room for more because this may just be my favorite perennial.

Aster ‘Purple Dome’ – just one.  It’ll stay short, for the front of the garden.

Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’.  Just one, and I hope it spreads fast next year.

Eucomis ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ was unknown to me but recommended by a designer friend.  VERY cool purple leaves – check it out.

Heuchera ‘Frosted Violet,’ sticking with the purple theme.

Hostas, which I couldn’t grow in my last, deer-infested garden: ‘City Lights,’ ‘Frances Williams,’ ‘Earth Angel,’ ‘Elegans,’ and huge divisions of plainer varieties from neighbors for fast fill-in in the first year or two.

Iris ‘Argentea Variegata’ for its light green and white foliage.

Penstemon ‘Husker Red’  for its deep red stems and leaves.

Persecaria polymorpha (Giant Fleece Flower) was also recommended by my designer friend – for something tall and dramatic.

Perennials from my old garden or giveaways from neighbors

Calamint ‘White Cloud.’  Great filler plant for the front of any border.

Euphorbia amygdaloides, Robb’s Spurge.  Evergreen even in the shade!  Also, fast-spreading.  Used it to great effect in my former woodland garden.

Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’ blooms too late for the seeds to germinate, so it’s not invasive.

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ are divisions from a neighbor.

Plus these fill-in plants

‘Tangerine Beauty’ Crossvine (Bignonia) for a vertical accent that’s evergreen and then sports reddish orange blooms in the summer.  Planted far enough away from the purple-maroon palette that it won’t clash – hopefully.

Hardy bananas will, I’m hoping, give me some instant screening next year where it’s needed the most.  Eventually the three Cryptomerias (Japanese cedars), six Blue Prince and Blue Maid Hollies, and three full-size Abelias will provide screening, but not by next year.

Patience is again helpful but when it’s in short supply, fast-growing hardy bulbs come in handy.

Posted by Susan Harris.

We loooooove Pinterest, and what gardener wouldn’t?  So visual, so gorgeous, so chockful of ideas for our own gardeners – designs, plants, outdoor features, you name it.

So we’ve been busy adding to our own Pinterest boards and are happy to announce lots of new “pins” to show off.

For instance, our Native Plants board has 41 photos, all regionally native plants looking gorgeous in the garden.

Shrubs includes 27 photos so far.  These shrubs are full-grown, in gardens.

Our Perennials collection includes 32 photos and we think shows how they might look in YOUR garden.

And we’ve added new photos to our collection of Beautiful Private Gardens, for a total of 26 so far.  Get your ideas right here!

But that’s not all.  Behnkes has 48 Pinterest boards in total – check ‘em out!

I recently attended an “open garden” event held by the Takoma Horticultural Club, during which I grabbed these photos of USDA-trained horticulturist Wendy Bell, whose talk about conservation landscaping we reported here on the blog.

Above, Wendy and Viv’s house is full of charm, and a great backdrop to Wendy’s lawn-free front garden.  She’s quick to tell visitors that this type of garden isn’t for the low-maintenance crowd, that it’s actually more work than a typical lawn.  (Remember, typical lawns in Takoma Park aren’t the perfect, golf-course type, but the barely good enough type of lawn that gets very little care.)

Note how much drama is added to the garden by one rather small Japanese maple.

Above, the view of Wendy’s front garden from her driveway.

In the back yard, lawn has given way to a raised-bed vegetable garden surrounded by a wood-chip path.

Tucked behind the garage are two really dramatic plants – a hardy banana that winters over just fine in the ground, and a high-yield fig tree.  I asked Wendy how long it took the banana to get that large – because I WANT ONE – and she said just two seasons.

Above are examples of focal points, starting with the signature bottle tree in Wendy’s front garden.  Very Southern!  And on the left is a bit of canna drama found in the front yard of Wendy’s next-door neighbor, horticulturist Margaret Atwell.  When not tending her plant-packed garden here in Takoma Park, Margaret works as the rosarian at the  U.S. Botanic Garden.  According to Holly Shimizu, director of the USBG, Margaret’s also in charge of the containers arrangements there, which Holly brags about to anyone who’ll listen.

Above, Margaret’s equally charming , super-colorful house.

A mulch-covered path across Margaret front garden.

Just one of many great combinations in this garden – the bark of a crape myrtle with a variegated Carex and sprawling hydrangeas underneath it.

Above, part of Margaret’s curbside garden.

Posted by Susan Harris.

It’s been a while since I showed off my new front garden in Old Greenbelt, and finally, I can show off the back garden, too.  (Which in Old Greenbelt is called “garden side”.  In contrast to what most of us would call the front but here they call “service side”.  All related to the inner sidewalks that allow pedestrian access to everything.)

After seven months of workers and inspectors and three-jurisdiction permit purgatory, my life is at last quiet.  And here’s where I spend hours a day – on this 11 x 17-foot screened-in porch.  A bug-free place to work and read and nap, with my three indoor cats.  Heaven.

With the porch done, it was time to install the flagstone patio and walkway.  What’s left for me to do is to plant more plants, and to make enough concrete pavers to form a path to the storage shed door.   A DIY job right up my alley (no skill required).

Plants I brought from my old garden include:

• 3 Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’
• 2 oakleaf hydrangeas
• 3 large Japanese Carexes
• LOTS of the much smaller ‘Ice Dance’ Carex, which look like variegated Liriope.
• Some Euphorbia amygdaloides, which is also evergreen and reproduces nicely.  Hope it likes its new home and does lots of that.

Plants already here that I’m using:

• Not much, just a few ‘Emerald Gaiety’ Euonymus shown in the next photo.  It stays low and really brightens up dark spots with its evergreen green and white foliage.
• Oh, and some plain Liriope spicata, which is so useful in preventing erosion on slopes like the one in the photo below.

Plants I bought this year for the back garden include:

• 6 ‘Blue Maid’ hollies and one male pollinator (hopefully he’s up to the task) for screening along both property lines near the house.  They’ll grow fast to be 8-10 feet tall and 6-8 feet wide, and I love that they’re soft to the touch – more so than most hollies.
• 3 Abelia grandiflorias along the sidewalk that will also afford fast screening, though not as high (they’ll be about 5 feet tall).  They grow incredibly fast and smell great.  Pollinators love them, too.
• A ‘Mount Airy’ Fothergilla in a partly shady spot.  I’ve never grown one of these native shrubs and look forward to its bottlebrush-shaped flowers in the spring, and great fall foliage.  It’ll grow to 3-5 feet or so.
• A Korean Spice viburnum, which I planted right next to my bench because when it’s in bloom I want to be close enough to it to take in its amazing scent.  It’ll stay nice and compact, at about 5-6 feet tall and a similar width.
• A ‘Shasta’ doublefile viburnum, which is to my eye the prettiest of all viburnums.  I had a couple in my last garden and have GOT to have one here.  It’ll grow to 6-8 feet tall and 10-12 feet wide.
• A ‘Ghost’ weigela – for its yellow-green, almost chartreuse foliage, and the fact that it’ll grow to about 5 by 5 feet, just the right size for my small garden.  I love the large old-fashioned weigelas but only have room for one of the smaller varieties, like this one.’
• 6 lacecap hydrangeas.
• 3 Cryptomerias (Japanese cedar), which is probably my all-time favorite conifer.  They’re not just beautiful but also soft to the touch, and grow incredibly fast even in shady spots.

More Plants Needed!
In the next two photos particularly, you see lots of bare mulch, where I’m welcoming plant suggestions, and free plants.  My former neighbors have offered me lots of Rudbeckias and Solomon’s Seal, which I’ll be picking up and planting when it cools down in the fall.  And a new neighbors has a few huge hostas she’s willing to donate divisions from if I do the dividing.  Deal!  Donated plants are great for filling in new gardens while new plants are still small, as is my budget.

The photo below points to another problem in search of a solution – how to hide the garden hose.  Whatever the solution, it has to look good AND be super-fast to use.

Posted by Susan Harris.