Silver Lustre in the Garden

Posted on December 19, 2016 by Janet

A little holiday song, for those who’ve stuck it out through my Twelve Months of Colour blogs in 2016:

Silver belles, silver belles,
It’s Christmas time in the city.
Ding-a-ling?? No, they don’t ring,
My “Silver Belles” just look pretty.

Yes, we’re finally in December, and as befits the tinsel month in my year-long celebration of monthly colour themes, I’ve pulled together a treasure box filled with pieces of silver (and some nice blue-greys) for your garden. You should know that I’m a big fan of grey, especially mixed with that little dash of brown that tips it into ‘taupe’. In fact, my house is painted that colour, and my deck and fence are stained a darker shade of stone-grey. It is a beautiful background for all plants.

If you add a little blue-green to silvery-gray, you get a colour we often describe as “glaucous”. That word has travelled a long way since it was first used by the Greeks, including Homer, as glaukos to mean “gleaming, silvery”. In Latin, it took on the meaning “bluish-green”, and in the 15h century, the Middle English word glauk meant “bluish-green, gray”. That fits the color of luscious Tuscan kale, below.

So we’ll look at some lovely plants with glaucous foliage as well.

Shrubs & Trees

Let’s begin with a few trees and shrubs. Weeping willowleaf pear (Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’) is a pretty little (20 ft – 7 m) tree with silvery-grey foliage. Here it is at Victoria’s Horticulture Centre of the Pacific, underplanted with Allium ‘Purple Sensation’.

Then we have a true willow, dwarf blue Arctic willow (Salix purpurea ‘Nana’). This is a very hardy, useful shrub, standing about 5 feet (1.5 m) tall and wide, that will lend its soft greyish texture to a variety of applications, including as hedging or a filler.

As for conifers, there are lots of blue junipers and silver firs, and of course, blue spruces. For a big silvery tree, perhaps none is as stately as the concolor or white fir (Abies concolor ‘Candicans’).

If you want a cool blue-grey spruce at garden level, consider Picea pungens ‘Glauca Procumbens’.

And I love the look of Juniperus conferta ‘Blue Pacific’, especially as it takes on mauve hues in winter, below, along with Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’.

Speaking of winter, there’s even a shrub with silvery fruit that persists into winter: Northern bayberry (Myrica pensylvanica).

Though we often think of lavender as perennial, it is actually a sub-shrub. English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) has greyish-blue foliage, and even the commonly available cultivars like ‘Hidcote’ and ‘Munstead’ will provide a good colour contrast, as they do edging this beautiful potager.

But if you want a really silvery, hardy lavender, try ‘Silver Mist’, shown below contrasting with a bronze carex.

And if you are in a climate where you can grow the more tender Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas), there’s a gorgeous silver-leaved cultivar called ‘Anouk’.

Perennials

Who hasn’t seen lamb’s-ears in a perennial border? And who hasn’t questioned whether the plant’s name should be a single lamb or a flock? Kidding aside, using hardy lamb’s-ears (Stachys byzantina) is one of the easiest ways to inject a note of silver into the garden. Here it is with lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis) at Burlington, Ontario’s Royal Botanical Gardens …..

… and fronting a June border at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden.

I love the way my pal Marnie White intersperses her lamb’s-ears with pink portulaca.

Sea holly has a few beautiful silver forms; this is Eryngium giganteum ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’ with liatris and switch grass (Panicum virgatum) at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) has several cultivars with lovely silvery variegation. This is ‘Jack Frost’.

Russian sage (Salvia yangii, formerly Perovskia) has fine silver foliage. Here it is with Liatris spicata.

And this is Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ creating a silvery pool at the edge of a border.

In the fern world, luscious Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum) is literally ‘painted’ with silver variegation. The stunning cultivar below is ‘Pewter Lace’.

Though they don’t come in pure silver, there are many blue-grey hostas to add texture to a shaded or semi-shaded place. At the Toronto Botanical Garden, I love the juxtaposition of Hosta ‘Blue Angel’ with the silvery-blue glass screen behind it.

Here is an assortment of blue-grey hostas.

1 – Ultramarine; 2 – First Frost; 3 – Fragrant Blue; 4 – Earth Angel; 5 – Paradise Joyce; 6 – Halcyon.

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With their rainbow foliage colour and myriad leaf markings, heucheras have become a plant breeder’s bonanza in the past few decades. Below are ‘Rave On’ (left) and ‘Silver Scrolls’ (right).

Euphorbias also offer delectable silver makings. Though it’s borderline-hardy where I garden in Toronto, I do love Euphorbia characias ‘Tasmanian Tiger’.

The silvery foliage of Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium) can be quite stunning, but careful it doesn’t escape – clip those flowers before they go to seed.

Grasses

Blue-grey grasses abound. Here’s Festuca glauca ‘Blue Glow’ with berried cotoneaster and silvery Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) behind.

This is ‘Heavy Metal’ switch grass (Panicum virgatum) – one of my favourites.

Little bluestem is a wonderful native prairie grass, and ‘Prairie Blues’ has a more pronounced silvery-blue hue.

‘Wind Dancer’ love grass (Eragrostis elliotii) is hardy only to USDA Zone 6, but I’ve seen it used as an annual grass to lovely effect.

Tender Shrubs, Annuals & Tropicals

Montreal Botanical Garden knows how to create wonderful knots and parterres with silvery plants. This is the tender grass Melinis nerviglumis ‘Savannah’ (ruby grass – USDA Zone 8-10) with Angelonia ‘Serena Purple’.

…. and this is Cerastium ‘Columnae Silberteppich’ with lantana.

Montreal Botanical’s Herb Garden has also used silvery herbs in formal design schemes over the years. The tapestry-like knot garden below features the sages (Salvia officinalis) ‘Berrgarten’ and variegated ‘Icterina’ in the circle, along with hedge germander (Teucrium chamaedrys) with the pink flowers; clipped lavender and santolina are in the background.

Here’s a closer look at santolina or cotton thistle (Santolina chamacyparissus) in flower. Its ease of shearing makes it a prime candidate for parterres and knots, but it is only hardy to USDA Zone 6.

There are several Mediterranean plants that fit our silvery-blue theme. A tender perennial (USDA Zone 8) with silver foliage that can be used as a drought-tolerant annual is Greek mountain tea (Sideritis syriaca).

And Senecio viravira or silver groundsel has textural foliage.

Isn’t this combination at the Niagara Botanical Gardens beautiful? The big, felted silver leaves of Salvia argentea with Tradescantia spathacea ‘Tricolor’ seem made for each other.

Also at Niagara Botanical one summer, I loved this juxtaposition of blue-grey cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) with the cascading silvery Dichondra argentea in the hanging baskets behind.

Speaking of dichondra, here it is at the Toronto Botanical Garden paired with Centaurea gymnocarpa ‘Colchester White’. This, of course, is the work of the TBG’s container wizard Paul Zammit.

Dusty miller (Centaurea cineraria) is an old-fashioned annual that’s easy to source and offers a lovely hit of silver, as with this rich autumn combination of dusty miller and ornamental cabbages.

We mustn’t forget the spectacular leaves of the newer Rex begonias like ‘Escargot’, below, many of which have silver markings.

There are loads of silvery succulents available, because being silver-grey (reflecting the sun) and being succulent (storing your own water in your leaves) are both adaptations to plants growing in extreme hot and dry environments. I loved this combination of Kalanchoe pumila ‘Quicksilver’ and Senecio serpens at Eye of the Day Garden Center in Carpinteria, California.

This pairing of blue sticks (Senecio mandraliscae) with Scaevola aemula at the Montreal Botanical Garden was simple, yet dramatic.

And the gorgeous container below was in the former Vancouver garden of garden guru Tom Hobbs and Brent Beattie, owners of Vancouver’s Southlands Nursery. It features Echeveria elegans, salmon-red Sedum rubrotinctum and silvery parrot feather (Tanacetum densum), along with astelia in the centre.

Succulents have been used extensively over the years by Paul Zammit at the Toronto Botanical Garden. Check out this silvery monochrome masterpiece.

And finally, this gorgeous windowbox from the TBG, with its luscious mix of silver echeverias, aptenias, kalanchoes, senecios, rhipsalis and more, all enhanced by the dwarf Arctic willow hedging around it.

With that, I finish my monthly 2016 exploration of the garden paintbox. But not to worry! 2017 is a whole new ballgame, and there will be garden colour galore (plus the odd travel journal and personal reminiscence) throughout the coming year.

A November Wine Tasting

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Janet

This is my month to explore that dark, rich, full-bodied, dowager great-aunt of ‘red’ – otherwise known as ‘wine’. Or burgundy, if you like. Like its viticulture companion, a little wine in the garden goes a long way. Overdo it and you might not like the heavy feeling that results. But a little sip here and there adds depth and elegance to the garden. So let’s sample a few good vintages, shall we?

In my part of the world, spring wines are quite common, given that the Lenten roses or hellebores are flowering in profusion. This is Helleborus ‘Blue Lady’.

There are a few excellent wine-red tulips for later in spring, like the lovely lily-flowered tulip ‘Burgundy’, below.

And I loved this combination of the bicolour Triumph tulip ‘Gavota’ and dark ‘Queen of Night’ at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

I know I might have included the late-flowered tulip ‘Queen of Night’ in my blog on ‘black’ flowers, but it often shows with more red. This is that sensuous tulip spangled through an uncharacteristically wild bulb planting in the very formal Jardin des Tuileries in Paris. Notice how the repetition of the dark colour carries your eye up through the various beds, unifying them and lending them a somewhat ‘designed’ feeling in keeping with the place.

One of the more elegant little spring bulbs is snakeshead fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris). Apart from the checkered, wine-red species, there is a white form as well.

Of all the small trees for gardens, the biggest choice in red-leafed selections can be found in Japanese maples. This is the highly regarded Acer palmatum var. dissectum ‘Inaba-shidare’ at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

But the ubiquitous ‘Bloodgood’ Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) also puts on a beautiful wine-red show throughout summer, and colours beautifully to bright scarlet in fall. Here it is with the Triumph tulip ‘Boston’ in the Mary Fisher Spring Garden at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

One of the best shrubs for adding deep wine-red colour to an herbaceous border is purple smokebush. There are a few cultivars but the most common is Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’. The trick is to cut it back to the ground, i.e. ‘coppice’ it, in spring. Here is ‘Royal Purple just emerging with tulips.

Here is coppiced ‘Royal Purple’ a little later in the season with a lovely matching brushmark lily (possibly ‘Latvia’) in Bev Koppel’s wonderful garden at the Deep Cove Chalet Restaurant outside Victoria, B.C.

Here is coppiced Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ with tropical Tibouchina urvilleana at the Conservatory Garden in New York’s Central Park.

And in Toronto horticulturist Frank Kershaw’s garden, there is an entire symphony of wine colour around Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’, including shutters, window awning and dwarf Japanese barberry.

Given all the hybridizing that’s occurred with heucheras over the past few decades, there are numerous selections with luscious leaves of burgundy and reddish-purple. At the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific outside Victoria, B.C., I adored this beautiful spring combination featuring Heuchera ‘Amethyst Mist’, Allium aflatunense ‘Purple Sensation’ and the dark-leafed ninebark Physocarpus ‘Diablo’ at rear.

Heuchera micrantha ‘Rachel’ is quite lovely.

And Heuchera ‘Pinot Noir’ has a name that fits our theme very nicely. It’s shown below frolicking with blue-flowered Gilia capitata.

One stunning peony is dark enough to be called ‘wine’, even if its actual name describes another favourite indulgence. Here is Paeonia ‘Chocolate Soldier’.

Though true-red irises have eluded hybridizers, there are many that come close to our November colour. Below is the heritage bearded iris ‘Col. Candelot’. Other deep-reds to check out are ‘Red at Night’, ‘Galactic Warrior’, ‘War Chief’, ‘Raptor Red’ and ‘Nebraska Big Red’, to name just a few.

And what about this gorgeous thing? Meet Iris spuria ‘Cinnabar Red’.

Though the mourning widow geranium (Geranum phaeum) is a little on the purplish side, I’ve included it here anyway. (And it’s a great bee flower!)

The breeders of the sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) below decided on a memorable name for their dark-flowered beauty. Meet ‘Heart Attack’, hanging out here with airy Allium schubertii at Wave Hill in the Bronx.

Early summer gives us masterworts (Astrantia major), and though many seem to be wishy-washy in their colouration, that’s not the case with ‘Hadspen Blood’, below, from Nori and Sandra Pope’s once glorious garden.

I simply adore Knautia macedonica with its dark-red button flowers that flower from spring well into autumn. It is the zingiest zing you can have in a border (or meadow), and all the bees love it, too.

Daylilies (Hemerocallis) aren’t really my thing anymore, other than the dear old orange tawny lily (H. fulva) that I have given up trying to annihilate in my garden. That being said, there are lots of wine-colored selections to choose from, including the lovelies below.

Clockwise from upper left: Strutter’s Ball, Round Midnight, Regal Finale, Tuscawilla Blackout, Black Ice, Jungle Beauty, Starman’s Quest, Jennifer Napier

Admittedly, Mexican hat (Ratibida columnifera) isn’t very showy, but it’s a fine choice for well-drained soil and a naturalistic garden.

Martagon lilies (Lilium martagon) are the epitome of elegance and will take light shade. Below is the fabulous ‘Sarcee’, named for a First Nation tribe in hybridizer Fred Tarlton’s province of Alberta. I photographed it in his astonishing collection at the Devonian Gardens near Edmonton.

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For tough, low-maintenance perennials with wine-red leaves, you simply can’t beat sedums. Below is my array of some notable selections. The bees will thank you!

We don’t always stop to observe the subtle colour changes that happen as flowers age beyond their prime. I loved this dreamy crimson-wine duo of Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum ssp. maculatum) and fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Cassian’).

Japanese barberry (love it or hate it) occupies a special place in the world of wine foliage, and its response to trimming makes it especially appealing in formal gardens. Without a red barberry, how could you possibly achieve the beautiful creation below, in the Knot Garden at Filoli Garden near San Francisco? Along with the Berberis thunbergii ‘Crimson Pygmy’, we have dwarf lavender cotton (Santolina chamaecyparis ‘Nana’), germander (Teucrium chamaedrys) and dwarf myrtle (Myrtus communis ssp. tarentina ‘Compacta’).

Though not particularly showy, the pineapple-scented, deep-red flowers of Carolina allspice (Calycanthus floridus), below, are intriguing – and they fit my category!

What about trees with dark-red leaves? One that is deservedly popular – and much smaller than its parent, almost a tall shrub – is weeping copper beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Purpurea’), below.

And I cannot go on without mentioning ‘Forest Pansy’ redbud (Cercis canadensis) – especially when it looks like this from underneath the canopy!

Now for some warm-weather wines: tender bulbs, tropicals and annuals.

A few of the pineapple lilies (Eucomis) are an interesting combination of olive and burgundy, like E. comosa ‘Oakhurst’, below. Look at that dark-red stem. (‘Sparkling Burgundy’ is another with similar colouration.)

Although they can look parkimental (park+regimental) grown in rows or Victorian-style bedding, many cannas have beautifully marked leaves and, in the right spot, add a luscious touch. Here is ‘African Sunset’ canna lily (Canna australis).

Speaking of the ‘right spot’, in Bev Koffel’s garden, a reddish canna and the deep-burgundy succulent Aeonium arborescens ‘Zwartkop’ add rich notes to an elegant urn.

Do you grow dahlias? If you like dark and dramatic, look no further than ‘Black Knight’.

Perhaps no species offers more possibilities in the wine spectrum than the foliage plant coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides, formerly Solenostemon, formerly Coleus blumei). I was enchanted by the way the gardeners at Toronto’s Spadina House worked ‘Wizard Mix’ coleus into their late summer plantings.

Want to see a few more? Here is ‘Kong Red’…

… and ‘Dipt-in-Wine’…..

… and ‘Big Red Judy’.

Though it’s not hardy in my part of the world, Pennisetum setaceum ‘Fireworks’ is a fabulous, variegated, dark-red grass to add movement and colour to the summer garden.

I’m a frequent visitor to the Montreal Botanical Garden, and I loved seeing these burgundy-leaved tropicals against a yellow and gold three-panelled screen there a few years ago. From left rear are red spike (Amaranthus cruentus), rubber tree plant (Ficus elastica ‘Burgundy’), calico plant (Alternanthera dentata ‘Purple Knight’) and ‘Carmencita’ castor bean (Ricinus communis).

Here’s a look at the flowers of ‘Carmencita Bright Red’ castor bean (Ricinus communis). (Caveat emptor. Do be aware that this plant’s seeds contain one of the deadliest toxins known to man, ricin. Just a few salt-sized grains of purified ricin can kill an adult.)

When we visited Nancy Goodwin’s Montrose Garden in Hillsborough, NC, a few years ago, spectacular and unexpected colour combinations were everywhere. I did enjoy this red-leaf hibiscus (Hibiscus acetosella) with orange dahlias.

In my own garden, I experiment each year with the contents of the six containers on the lower landing of my sundeck. One summer, below, I tried ‘Sweet Caroline Red’ sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas) with Anagallis ‘Wildcat Orange’. (The truth is it looked better in June than it did in August, since the anagallis petered out and the chartreuse-leaf pelargoniums were underwhelming, but the sweet potato vine thrived.)

Speaking of pelargoniums, ‘Vancouver Centennial’ is a real winner, with its bronze-red foliage.

One of the best spiky ‘centrepiece’ annuals is Cordyline australis ‘Red Star’, seen here in a pot at the Toronto Botanical Garden. Just look how its deep tones are picked up in those colour splotches on the luscious ‘Indian Dunes’ pelargonium.

And hello ‘grains-as-ornamentals’! This was redspike (Amaranthus cruentus) with slender vervain (Verbena rigida) and ‘Lemon Gem’ marigolds (Tagetes tenuifolia) in a fabulous planting one year at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden.

Speaking of edibles, you can’t get find a more beautiful, wine-leafed edible than this beet: Beta vulgaris ‘Bull’s Blood’ with nasturtiums and chartreuse ‘Margarita’ sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas).

And my last sip for our November wine tasting is a fine, full-bodied claret – yes, ‘Claret’ sunflower (Helianthus annuus).

Whew! ‘Wine-ding’ down now, that takes me through eleven months in my 2016 paintbox. Stay tuned for December and some lovely silver ‘belles’.

Orange: Three Fruits & a Fish – Part Two

Posted on October 29, 2016 by Janet

In my last colour blog Orange: Three Fruits & A Fish – Part One, we explored some beautiful orange-flowered perennials. Here I’ll offer up some hardy roses, shrubs and vines with orange blossoms or colourful orange fruit, then an assortment of orange-flowered annual and tropical flowers.

Shrubs & Vines

Flowering quince (Chaenomeles sp.) is one of those spring shrubs that appear in April or May, its salmon or tangerine blossoms emerging on spined branches to outshine even colourful tulips and daffodils, and attracting early bees to its pollen-rich stamens. Old-fashioned and much-planted in the 1950s, you don’t see flowering quince in many contemporary gardens today, which is a pity. The ones I’ve photographed have been in the cemetery, like this C. x speciosa at Mount Pleasant Cemetery…

…or in a botanical garden, like this exquisitely-pruned, little specimen nestled against a rock in the Japanese Garden at Montreal Botanical Garden.

Spring is also the season for wonderful rhododendrons, and we can find some good orange-flowered examples. For fifty years now (since 1957), the ‘Lights’ breeding program at the Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Minnesota has produced some rugged, hardy azaleas (botanically rhododendrons) in a spectacular range of colours. ‘Spicy Lights’ was bred in 1987, and is a beautiful, rich salmon-orange with yellow blotches.

I love strolling along the Rhododendron Walk at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Gardens in May, when the Japanese azaleas are in bloom. Though it’s not hardy for us here in Toronto, Rhododendron molle. ssp. japonicum (USDA Zone 6) is one of my favourites there, especially with its contrasting groundcover of blue Spanish bluebells (Endymion hispanicus).

Honeysuckle vines are super-hardy, bring hummingbirds, and look fabulous with their orange & scarlet blossoms spangled over a wall or fence. This is Lonicera ‘Mandarin’, developed at the University of British Columbia.

And this is old-fashioned Lonicera x brownii ‘Dropmore Scarlet’, developed as a cross between L. sempervirens and L. hirsuta in the 1950s by the famous breeder Frank Skinner in Dropmore, Manitoba. It can grow to 12 feet (4 metres) when happy. Note the eye-pleasing effect of growing an orange-flowered vine on a brick wall – and orange brick is a subject all its own, a backdrop that can make or break a garden vignette.

One of the bigger North American native vines (to 30 feet or 10 metres) is trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans), but it must have a strong support. As its Wikipedia page says: “The vigor of the trumpet vine should not be underestimated. In warm weather, it puts out huge numbers of tendrils that grab onto every available surface, and eventually expand into heavy woody stems several centimeters in diameter. It grows well on arbors, fences, telephone poles, and trees, although it may dismember them in the process. Ruthless pruning is recommended.” Hummingbirds and bees love trumpet creeper flowers.

Roses

Not being a rosarian, I can only suggest a few orange roses that come recommended. One is ‘Westerland’, a large-flowered, repeat-blooming, upright shrub or climber that can reach 12 feet (4 metres). Its highly-fragrant flowers are produced continuously from June to frost. Bred by Kordes in 1969, it is the recipient of an AGM (Award of Garden Merit) from England’s Royal Horticultural Society. This is ‘Westerland’ at New York Botanical Garden’s fabulous Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden.

Another tall, fragrant climber with pale, apricot-orange blossoms is ‘Alchymist’.

David Austin Roses has bred many lovely apricot- and peach-flowered shrub roses. Below is ‘Lady of Shalott’ (4-5 feet tall), an AGM winner and considered to be one of the hardiest and most disease-resistant of the English roses.

There are too many shrub roses and floribundas with orange flowers to mention, but I very much like the award-winning floribunda ‘Fellowship’.

Orange Fruit

Apart from the orange, bronze and apricot hues that many deciduous trees and shrubs take on in autumn (see my blog on orange fall colour here), there are many with jewelled orange fruits in late summer and fall, too. One of the prettiest is ‘Afterglow’ winterberry (Ilex verticillata), shown here with purple-fruited beautyberry (Callicarpa dichotoma ‘Early Amethyst’).

And I must mention firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea), which features a number of orange-fruited cultivars, including ‘Orange Glow’.

Annuals & Tropicals:

Now we get into the fun part of my orange treatment: the flowering annuals, tender bulbs and perennials, and tropical plants. Let’s start with the newish dark-leafed little Begonia ‘Sparks Will Fly’.

My pal and container whiz, Toronto Botanical Garden horticulturist Paul Zammit, worked this one into a spectacular urn creation, along with Begonia boliviensis and orange-toned cannas, lantanas and coleus.

And if you had a peek at that container blog, you’ll see that Paul does love a little orange, including the row of window boxes, below, featuring kitchen herbs parsley and sage with a mix of Calibrachoa MiniFamous iGeneration Orange and Can Can Terracotta with the grasses Hakonechloa ‘All Gold’ and Carex buchananii.

Hardworking calibrachoas (million bells or mini-petunias) have become mainstays of annual container design in the past decade or so. I loved this combination of Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Peach’ and ‘Superbells Blue’ with ‘Purple Wave’ petunias in a window-box in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada.

And can you say “coral” (i.e. salmon)? The fabulous duo shown below is Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Coral Punch’ and Verbena ‘Superbena Coral Red’.

I’ve been a fan of the ‘Profusion’ series of zinnias since their launch in the 1990s. I especially loved the way Vancouver’s Van Dusen Gardens scattered Zinnia ‘Profusion Orange’ through this intermingled planting with Salvia patens ‘Cambridge Blue’, bunny tail grass (Lagurus ovatus) and purple verbena (V. rigida).

I’ve included Zinnia ‘Profusion Orange’ in my own container on the deck at Lake Muskoka, below, along with yellow and apricot African daisies (Osteospermum ‘Symphony Series’) and orange nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus).

African daisies or osteospermums come in a range of orange shades. When I was at wonderful Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, Pennsylvania, I was entranced by the combination below of apricot-flowered Osteospermum ‘Zion Orange’ with Diascia ‘Flirtation Orange’, caressed by the grassy, bronze-orange blades of Carex testacea.

Nasturtiums, of course, offer a serious orange jolt of their own. Here is Tropaeolum majus ‘Alaska’ with the signet marigold Tagetes tenuifolia ‘Tangerine Gem’. And guess what? Both are edible!

And there’s a plus to nasturtiums: hummingbirds love them.

Speaking of hummingbirds, you will almost certainly attract them to your containers if you include one of their favourite flowers, hummingbird mint or agastache. This is Agastache ‘Kudos Coral’, and it’s a good hummer lure.
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I also love the little Agastache ‘Apricot Sprite’ – it’s perfect for pots and hanging baskets, and I’ve even found that it reseeds in my USDA Zone 5 containers.

Back to marigolds, I’ve never been a fan of the big African numbers (Tagetes erecta), so stiff and regimented they seem to be suited only to park plantings. But I’d certainly love to try the willowy (18 inch – 45 cm) Tagetes ‘Burning Embers’, which I found in my friend Marnie White’s garden. Some seed sources refer to this as a selection of a species Tagetes linnaeus, (and say something about it being found in Linnaeus’s Uppsala garden) but that binomial doesn’t seem to be valid. I assume it’s simply a good form of Tagetes patula.

When I first saw orange petunias, I was taken aback as they’re a brave, new colour in those old-fashioned annuals. The one below is ‘Sun Spun Orange’ – what a fabulous container plant it would be!

Fuchsias can be orange, too, and are a good container solution for partly shaded spots. The creative combination, below, features Fuchsia ‘Gartenmeister’, Lantana ‘Landmark Sunrise’, and purple browallia, along with other annuals.

Lantanas come in many shades of peach, apricot and orange and, depending what else is in bloom, offer sweet foraging for butterflies.

Another edible flower that’s a fixture in kitchen gardens is pot marigold or Calendula officinalis. It comes in singles, doubles and shades of yellow, gold and orange. I liked this simple combo with chives (Allium schoenoprasum).

Speaking of kitchen gardens, have you noticed the great breeding work that’s being done with amaranths to take them out of the grain field and transform them into bold standouts in the ornamental border? This is Amaranthus ‘Golden Giant’.

And this is what it looks like backing up purple anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum).

Gloriosa daisies are deservedly popular and add a little Hollywood pizzazz to common old blackeyed susans. Of the many variations in colour, likely the best selection for adding bronze-orange to the garden (there’s no pure orange) is Rudbeckia hirta ‘Cappucino’.

This is how ‘Cappucino’ looks with ‘Lemon Gem’ marigolds and purple Verbena rigida in a bed at Van Dusen Gardens. Pretty nice, right? And it’s easy to grow from seed.

Now, if you want a true-orange ‘daisy’ flower, you need only choose butterfly-friendly Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia), either the straight species – which can grow 4-6 feet tall shown at left and middle, below, or a dwarf form such as ‘Fiesta del Sol’, shown at right with Salvia farinacea.

The most impressive ‘daisies’ of all are sunflowers (Helianthus annuus), and though none are pure orange, you can find some burnt-orange selections like ‘Evening Colors’, ‘Earthwalker’, ‘Crimson Queen’ and ‘Autumn Beauty’.

I won’t bore you with orange-flowered pelargoniums (border geraniums) because we’d be here all night, but just a mention of two with stunning foliage. The first is ‘Indian Dunes’, below, – and I do like those salmon-orange blooms.

The second is ‘Vancouver Centennial’ – invaluable for its wine-brown leaves and delicate orange flowers.

Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) has become popular to grow as annual flower in recent years as more gardeners look to attract monarch butterflies to their gardens. Like all milkweeds, its foliage is food for monarch caterpillars, and it does look pretty in combination with plants like annual Verbena bonariensis, below.

Zingy gomphrenas have seen their popularity surge – and they’re fabulous as cut flowers and dried flowers, too. If you want to try one in orange, search out Gomphrena ‘QIS Orange’, shown below with purple Ageratum houstonianum.

Ursinia anthemoides ‘Solar Fire’ veers a little from apricot-orange towards gold, but I’m including it here because I think it’s an annual that should be grown more. It looked lovely at the Montreal Botanical Garden with Echium vulgare ‘Blue Bedder’.

I’m finishing my book-length (!) dissertation on orange flowers with a handful of dahlias. Tender tubers, they are easily grown in warm soil in spring and must be stored indoors for winter. Goodness knows there are myriad dahlias of all shapes and sizes in orange, but the array below shows some of my favourites, including the aptly-named cactus dahlia ‘Bodacious’, top; and below, two more modestly-sized border varieties: the bee-friendly ‘Bishop of Oxford’ left, and ‘Pooh’, right.

Orange Flourishes

Woman does not live by Flora alone, of course. There are other ways to bring the colour orange into the garden without actually growing it. When I visited gardens in Portland, Oregon, I was delighted to see these whimsical orange accessories in Nancy Goldman’s funky backyard lair.

And do you agree with me that this Toronto garden just amped up the cool factor with bright orange chairs beside all those bobbing purple alliums?

But really, orange in the garden doesn’t have to be furniture, and it doesn’t have to be splashy. It can be as tiny and perfect as a fanciful glass bird sailing away on an ocean of frothy foliage. (Thank you Michael Renaud of Toronto’s Horticultural Design.)

And on that final “October is my Orange month” note, I will sail away into November, when we shall reconvene in The Paintbox Garden for a little “wine-tasting”. I’ll bring out some of my finest burgundies for you to sample.

Beguilingly Brown in the Garden

Posted on September 27, 2016 by Janet

“Brown in the garden”. Remember my January resolution to blog about every colour for all of 2016? Well, it’s September and I’ve delayed writing about brown as long as I could….

No, “brown in the garden” is not a phrase you often hear, unless it’s wondering what to do with those Japanese maple leaves that are curling up and turning brown in summer (uh-oh). Or the white pine needles that are turning brown in October (they’re getting ready to fall silly… no evergreen is truly ever-green.)

In the winter, you might notice bronze oak leaves remaining on trees, even through the snowiest and coldest weather. That is a function of tannins that remain in the leaves once chlorophyll breaks down, protecting and preserving them in the same way an old-fashioned ‘tanner’ would use these substances to turn animal hides into leather. This tendency to hang onto the twig as a brown leaf after most deciduous trees have lost their leaves is called marcescence. Beeches, below, also exhibit marcescence, and their winter leaves can be quite fetching in the garden..

I love this winter combination of columnar beeches (Fagus sylvatica ‘Atropurpurea’) and switch grass (Panicum virgatum) at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Many warm-season grasses also retain tannins in the leaf and enough structural integrity to stand upright through winter weather. Shown below in snow is switch grass (Panicum virgatum), but you may note this strong winter presence in maiden grass (Miscanthus), feather reed grass (Calamagrostis), fountain grass (Pennisetum) and northern sea oats (Chasmanthium) as well.

Toronto’s Music Garden relies on ornamental grasses to provide much of its interest for the long winter months.

Brown seedheads also have their own charm, and many look beautiful against snow. This is anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum ‘Blue Fortune’) consorting with a grass in winter.

Purple coneflower seedheads (Echinacea purpurea) persist very well through winter, and feed hungry birds as well.

Even in the gardening season, flowers that turn brown add a textural note to plantings. In my own cottage meadows, I love the September shaving-brush seedheads of New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis).

These are the seedheads of Phlomis tuberosa ‘Amazone’, with the fading flowers of echinacea. Not surprisingly, this duo is in the Entry Border of the Toronto Botanical Garden – a border designed by Piet Oudolf, whose philosophy is to create a meadow-like tapestry of plants that lend beauty even when out of bloom.

And look at these giant alliums, also in the entry border at the TBG. Of course they were beautiful when they were rich violet-purple, but I do love them as brown seedheads consorting with the rest of the plants a few weeks later.

Speaking of the Toronto Botanical Garden, I spend so much time there, chronicling the changes in the various gardens, but especially in Piet Oudolf’s Entry Border, that I’ve come to appreciate the plants that persist beyond their starring roles. So I’ve made a video to show the function that “brown” fulfills as a substantive colour in autumn and winter, after the colourful flowers have faded. There are many plants shown in these images, but especially good for persistence of seedheads are Liatris, Echinacea, Achillea, Stachys, Astilbe and, of course, all the ornamental grasses. Have a look……

Piet Oudolf also designed the plantings at the High Line, where brown is a colour, too. Below is a pink astilbe in the process of turning bronze, then buff, making it the perfect colour companion for the blackeyed susans.

Lovely as they are in the winter garden, many grasses also have spectacular brown flowers that create lovely colour combinations in the summer garden, too, like this fluffy brown cloud of (Deschampsia caespitosa) with airy sea lavender (Limonium latifolium), also in the border designed by Piet Oudolf.

And here it is softening purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) at the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario. Doesn’t that little cloud of brown add a grace note to that scene?

This is feather reed grass (Calamagrostis acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’) with blue Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) – demonstrating that blue and (golden) brown make lovely dance partners.

Speaking of blue and brown, this is a very good combination: Amsonia ‘Blue Ice’ with Heuchera ‘Caramel’.

Heucheras, of course, have been bred over the past few decades to produce a fabulous range of colours, many of which veer towards brown. I love the rich tones of ‘Mahogany’, below.

Even some evergreens can be called brown, like this weird little arborvitae, Thuja occientalis ‘Golden Tuffet’ (which isn’t even dead!)

Many tropical plants seem to exhibit brownish tones. For example, luscious Canna ‘Intrigue’, here with coleus at the Toronto Botanical Garden….

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…. and that strange multi-colored tropical shrub copperleaf (Acalypha wilkesiana), with its patchwork peach & brown leaves. Though you sometimes see this as the cultivar ‘Mosaica’, the reddish-olive-brown shows up in varying degrees in a few forms of that species. ‘Haleakala’ has a completely brown leaf.

I love Cordyline ‘Red Star’, which is the centrepiece of this fabulous urn by the Toronto Botanical Garden’s gifted horticulturist Paul Zammit. Though it often looks more burgundy, here it reads as rich brown, especially with the matching heucheras.

Phormiums or New Zealand flax have been a big part of the tropical gardener’s arsenal, and many are bronze- or olive-brown. This is lovely ‘Dusky Chief’.

And where would gardeners be with annual sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas)? One of the richest is mocha-coloured ‘Sweet Caroline Bronze’, shown below with Pelargonium ‘Indian Dunes’.

There are countless cultivars of the annual foliage plant coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides), and a few hit the brown jackpot, like ‘Velvet Mocha’ below.

Pineapple lily (Eucomis comosa) ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ has olive-brown foliage that really adds depth to a garden, like the Ladies’ Bed at the New York Botanical Garden.

Brown-flowered perennial plants are, admittedly, in short supply (many gardeners likely wondering why you’d even want a brown flower) but there are strange and lovely bearded irises that come in copper and cinnamon shades, like ‘Hot Spice’, below.

And we simply cannot leave a discussion of brown in the plant world without talking about the genus Carex. Whether it’s Carex testacea, like this fun bronze-headed sculpture in Marietta & Ernie O’Byrne’s Northwest Garden Nursery in Eugene, Oregon……

….. or Carex buchananii in my very own sundeck pots a few years back.

I loved the way the Toronto Botanical Garden’s Paul Zammit used Carex buchananii in this spectacular run of windowboxes, along with orange calibracoa, the golden grass Hakonechloa macra ‘All Gold’, golden cypress and kitchen herbs.

And, yes, C. buchananii can be counted on throughout the snows of winter. (Whether it reappears in spring depends on how cold winter got!)

BUT….. gardeners do not live by plants alone. There are furnishings! And they can be brown & beautiful, like these cool, dark-brown metallic planters at Chanticleer Garden, in Wayne PA. (Check out the carex inside.)

Speaking of Chanticleer, I loved this rugged brown wood-and-COR-TEN steel bench and pergola in their Tennis Garden – and look how lovely brown furnishings are with brilliant chartreuse foliage.

Weathered COR-TEN steel is all the rage these days, being a stable, rusty finish that needs no upkeep. It was used to spectacular effect to make this canoe-like planter at New York’s High Line, holding interesting, moisture-loving plants flanking the garden’s water feature.

Water features are another way to bring a shot of brown into the garden. Have a look at the drilled ceramic urn fountain, below, which I photographed at Seaside Nursery in Carpinteria, California.

Let me finish up with a few sculptural details in shades of brown. Let’s start with whimsy – and a little Pythagorean creation from Suzann Partridge’s annual Artful Garden show. Isn’t she sweet?

And then let’s move to elegance: a handsome, rusty obelisk perfectly placed within a flowery border at Northwest Garden Nursery in Eugene.

Finally, I’ll sign off with a little farewell to summer: a September bouquet filled with brown prairie seedheads and grasses, from my Lake Muskoka meadow to you. And a reminder to remember that brown is a colour too!

Wonderful Wave Hill

Posted on September 21, 2016 by Janet

One of my ‘must-do’ gardens when I have a few days in New York (apart from New York Botanical and the Conservatory Garden at Central Park and the High Line) is fabulous Wave Hill, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. And so it was that in mid-August, I caught the Metro North ‘Hudson Line’ train at Grand Central Station and took my comfy window seat for the scenic ride along the Hudson River. (Excuse the dirty windows, please – not my fault!)

When you get off at Riverdale-Wave Hill, you really should wait for the shuttle, which meets northbound trains at 9:50am, 10:50am, 11:50am, 12:50pm, 1:50pm, 2:50pm and 3:50pm. (Return shuttles for southbound trains leave Wave Hill’s front gate at 20 minutes past the hour, from 12:20pm through 5:20pm). But I was feeling energetic – and had forgotten how steep the hill is and how long the walk from the station up towards the garden, set in a lovely, leafy Bronx neighbourhood. So I walked.

Wave Hill, overlooking the Hudson River and the towering Palisades on the New Jersey shore, was built by lawyer William Morris in 1843 to serve as his country home. It was enlarged by publishing scion William Appleton in the late 1800s, and played host to visiting notables such as Thomas Huxley. Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t yet in his teens when his parents rented the estate in the summers of 1870 and ’71, and likely helped to foster in him the love of nature that propelled him to protect America’s wild lands as national parks. Perhaps its most famous resident was Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), who leased Wave Hill from 1901 to ’03, and entertained guests in a tree house on the back lawn. Later residents included conductor Arturo Toscanini (1942-45). In 1960, Wave Hill’s last private owners, the Perkins-Freeman family, deeded the estate to the city of New York and it was incorporated as a non-profit, one of 33 city-owned cultural institutions and specializing in programs of horticulture, environmental education, woodland management and presentations of the visual and performing arts. while seeking to “foster connections between people and nature”. (Sources: Wikipedia & Wave Hill) Wave Hill House underwent a two-year $9.8 million renovation and was reopened in 2013. When I visited the following June, I was impressed with the gleaming woodwork – not to mention the stunning bouquet of delphiniums in just the right shade of blue to enhance the walls.

As I headed into the garden this August, I was greeted by some lovely new touches to the Perennial Flower Garden, which I had last seen in 2014, including the beautiful, sky-blue tuteurs in each of the central four sections.

The flower garden, overseen by gardener Harneck Singh, consists of eight plots arranged in cruciform quadrants, each loosely colour-themed. And there’s always something big and beautiful from the greenhouses in the centre; this summer it was a luscious, variegated agave.

Those blue tuteurs add to the elegance quotient in the flower garden. Here’s how it looked in June 2014. below. Not nearly as dramatic.

There were a lot of silver-spotted skippers flying about, including this one on Clematis heracleifolia.

I enjoyed seeing Clematis crispa climbing the rose bower in the flower garden.

Speaking of rose bowers, I fondly recalled making former director of horticulture Marco Polo Stufano pose for me in one of the bowers, when I was there in 1994. Though it was terribly sunny and not great light for a portrait (especially with my limited photography skills more than 20 years ago), I do enjoy having this reminder of a very talented man who lent his expertise to the garden. Today, Louis Bauer is horticulture director and is putting his own creative mark on Wave Hill’s gardens.

My 1994 visit was seven years after Marco Polo Stufano was featured on the cover of the November 1987 issue of Horticulture magazine. (Photo by Allen Rokach) And yes, I am a packrat, and I really should clean out the mags in my office!

The story inside the magazine was about the flower garden, as redesigned by then curator of gardens John Nally. His name is now memorialized in Wave Hill’s practice of hiring interns – called Nallies – to work in the garden. I had a little chat with one of Wave Hill’s 2016 Nallies, Gabe Santoriello, who was carefully deadheading flowers in the red garden. He made me chuckle when I called out ‘Gabe’, to ask him about a plant. “You know, I had my earphones in,” he said, “but you sounded just like my mom when you called me.” (I’ve had some family experience calling out to young men!)

Being late summer, grasses were good-looking, like this Calamagrostis acutiflora with Helenium autumnale.

I loved the duo below in the red garden, when I visited in June 2014: ‘Heart Attack’ sweet william (Dianthus barbatus) and the airy seedheads of Allum schubertii. Isn’t this cool?

Walking into the entrance to the tropical and desert greenhouses, I saw that Marco Polo Stufano has also been honoured with his name on the conservatory, a gift of Frank and Anne Cabot, who also founded The Garden Conservancy. .

Lovers of tropical plants should be prepared to spend a lot of time exploring the jewels in the tropical house.

What a fascinating plant: Strophanthus preussii. I had a discussion with plant nerd friends on Facebook about the evolutionary significance of the long, red corolla threads. We couldn’t come to an agreement about why nature gave this African liana such decorative accents (but nature rarely creates adaptations for the fun of it).

I loved seeing this little arrangement of air plants (Tilliandsia ionantha).

This is what greeted me in the tropical house in June 2014: can you say Indian clock vine (Thunbergia mysorensis)?

Crossing into the desert house, I paused to take in the stunning variety of small succulents and cacti.

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Walking back into the garden through the blue conservatory doors (matching those tuteurs), I was reminded how effective a little paint is at drawing landscape elements together – and how complex the textural plantings in those containers just outside the doors were!

I never visit Wave Hill without heading down to the long pergola overlooking the Hudson River and the Palisades on the New Jersey shore. Apart from the stunning view, there are loads of wonderful plants displayed there!

Another section of the pergola.

And lookng towards Wave Hill House along the pergola.

That cascading, yellow-flowered vine intrigued me, but I had no idea what it was. So I cornered Wave Hill gardener Coralie Thomas who carefully dug out the label to show me: Petraeovitex bambusetorum, or Nong Noch vine, a Vietnam native. Thank you Coralie!

Then it was time to move on to some of the other wonderful gardens, but I stopped to take a quick shot of the happy confection of flowers (gomphrena ‘Fireworks’ & yellow strawflower) in the Paisley Garden across from the Visitor Centre.

Immediately behind the conservatory on a rise of land are two long gardens. The first is the Herb Garden…

…. with its late summer profusion of aromatic herbs.

The second is the Dry Garden.

There are always interesting surprises dotted about here and there, like this Boophane disticha on the steps. .

Behind these is a lovely display of bonsai plants.

Beyond is the Alpine House, which is not open to the public but easily observed through the glass.

Head back out to the path and circle around behind the Alpine House and you’ll come to the Wild Garden.

This is a tough theme to pull off without attracting loads of weeds, but the August display was beautiful – naturalistic, yet reasonably controlled.

I liked the contrast of the staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) with the bronze colour of the upright spurge (Euphorbia stricta).

One of my favourite spots to spend a little time sitting is the Aquatic Garden. I loved how it had filled out from June….

….to August, when the big lotuses (Nelumbo nucifera) are at their sumptuous best.

Adjacent is the Monocot Garden, with its luscious grasses, lilies and bromeliads, among many other plants.

With a date on Manhattan’s High Line in late afternoon, it was time for me to pick up a lunch at Wave Hill’s lovely restaurant and make my way to the shuttle for the drive to the Riverdale train station. As I looked around at all the spectacular but residential-scale gardens here (there are others besides those I’ve written about), I thought of a sentence from that Horticulture magazine story 29 years ago, Though it described the redesign of the Perennial Flower Garden, it could be applied to all the gardens at Wave Hill: “…its style would be in keeping with Wave Hill’s history as a private estate.” Indeed, this garden is sheer inspiration for those who create modest gardens around their own homes. It is truly a garden for people. But as I walked down the path beside a scrambling maypop vine (Passiflora incarnata) and watched the carpenter bees and honey bees nectaring madly on the August blossoms, I was reminded that it’s also a garden that nourishes and sustains nature’s myriad other creatures.

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

Category Archives: Annuals/Tropicals

Silver Lustre in the Garden

A November Wine Tasting

Orange: Three Fruits & a Fish – Part Two

Beguilingly Brown in the Garden

Wonderful Wave Hill

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