Category Archives: Plant Design

Penstemon Envy

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I’ve just returned home from Denver (and the annual edition of my Garden Bloggers’ Fling) with a severe case of ineedmore. There’s not really a cure for this, except to acknowledge that “I need more penstemons” is a real affliction, especially in June. Especially after being in Colorado, where so many penstemons are native.  I felt it stirring at the High Plains Environmental Center in Fort Collins, where red-flowered scarlet bugler (P. barbatus) was consorting wtih purplish Rocky Mountain penstemon (Penstemon strictus) and native yellow columbines (Aquilegia chrysantha).

Pretty sure I saw gorgeous, pink Palmer’s penstemon (P. palmeri) at the doorway to the visitor centre there. I tried to grow that one from seed, but no dice.

I have a photo specialty of bumble bee (Bombus) images, and I was happy to collect a new species, Bombus nevadensis, the Nevada bumble bee, nectaring on Penstemon strictus at the High Plains Environmental Center.

Denver Botanic Garden‘s new Steppe Garden featured penstemons galore. I loved this little meadow with large-flowered penstemon (P. grandiflorus) in various colours.

This was an interesting combination at Denver Botanic: Penstemon grandiflorus in a bed of Fire Spinner ice plant (Delosperma cooperi).

I do grow P. grandiflorus at my cottage on Lake Muskoka, north of Toronto. A biennial, it makes a rosette of succulent, silvery-gray leaves the first year, then sends up this sturdy stem with gorgeous lilac-purple blooms the next year. It’s easy to grow from seed. This is what it looked like the first year I seeded it, up near my septic bed. (And yes, it is growing with the pernicious, invasive, lovable oxeye daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare…)

If I watch this penstemon carefully , I’ll see lots of native bees and hoverflies exploring the lilac-mauve flowers.

Desert penstemon (P. pseudospectabilis) was in flower at Denver Botanic Gardens, too.

We would see that pretty penstemon at The Gardens on Spring Creek in Fort Collins, this time with a pink dianthus.

There were other penstemons at this developing garden. This sky-blue one had no label, but horticulturist Bryan Fischer is quite sure it’s Penstemon virgatus, the upright blue penstemon or one-sided penstemon.

Well-known designer/writer Lauren Springer Ogden is creating The Undaunted Garden (named after her iconic book) at The Gardens on Spring Creek.  One of the plants she’s used is the stunning Penstemon heterophyllus ‘Electric Blue’, below.

Rocky mountain penstemon (Penstemon strictus), of course, is a common native beardtongue in Denver.  This is P. strictus ‘Bandera’ at Denver Botanic Gardens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Denver Botanic Garden’s Chatfield Farm campus (where we enjoyed a buffet dinner and line-dancing lessons!) we saw Penstemon strictus growing with scarlet bugler (Penstemon barbatus ‘Coccineus’) and a bearded iris thrown in the mix.

And Penstemon strictus made a beautiful purple foil to native yellow blanket flowers (Gaillardia aristata) at Chatfield.

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This was an effective colour combination there: apricot mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua) with Penstemon strictus. 

Banana yucca (Yucca baccata) made a brilliant focal point in a sea of Penstemon strictus at Chatfield, below.

In Carol Shinn’s beautiful Fort Collin’s garden, I admired purple P. strictus and scarlet bugler (P. barbatus ‘Coccineus’) in a gritty bed beside her driveway. They were flowering with a native white erigeron, yellow eriogonum and tall yellow prince’s plume (Stanleya pinnata) in the background.

 

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Dan Johnson and Tony Miles’s lovely garden in Englewood, Pentemon strictus was consorting happily beside a little water feature with California poppies.

At radio personality Keith Funk’s garden in Centennial, below, a front yard alpine garden paired the compact red flowers of pineleaf penstemon (P. pinifolius) with yellow foxtail lily (Eremurus), right, and evening primrose (Oenothera), rear.

Well-known garden guru Panayoti Kelaidis, outreach director of the Denver Botanic Gardens, had lots of penstemons in his garden. I liked this colourful combination of cacti with desert penstemon (P. pseudospectabilis).

I first met Panayoti in June 2006 when he generously gave my husband and me a 90-minute tour of the botanic garden, of which he was (and is) so deservedly proud.  We were on a driving trip from Denver to Edwards CO and we stopped in at DBG and also at the Betty Ford Alpine Garden in Vail. What a delight that little jewel of a garden is, especially for penstemons!  So when I came back to Canada, I decided to sow some penstemon seed in my wild, sandy, hillside garden on Lake Muskoka, north of Toronto. As I wrote above, biennial large-flowered penstemon enjoyed the conditions and still comes up here and there. Not all the seeds took, but one luscious species, prairie penstemon (P. cobaea var. purpureus) found happiness with its roots seemingly tucked under rocks and graced me with just two plants that appear faithfully each June.

My most successful seed-sowing, however, was our native foxglove penstemon (P. digitalis), which loves my granite hillside, thrives in sandy, acidic gravel and shrugs off drought.  It is a great self-seeder and enjoys the company of lanceleaf coreopsis (C. lanceolata), which likes the same mean conditions.  They are always in bloom on Canada Day (July 1st).

Here it is with a foraging bumble bee. Hummingbirds love this penstemon, too (as they do all penstemons).

Penstemons are also called “beardtongue”, for the fuzzy staminode in the centre of the flower. You can see that below with a closeup of foxglove penstemon.

Penstemons flower mostly in June and early July. Depending on the species, they make beautiful garden companions for lots of late spring-early summer perennials: irises, peonies, lupines and more. One June (before the foxglove penstemon came into flower), I made a little bouquet from my country meadows here on Lake Muskoka.  Along with the pale-lilac Penstemon grandiflorus I included native blue flag iris (I. versicolor), wild lupines (L. perennis) and weedy oxeye daisies and buttercups. This year our spring was cold and flowering was late, so I’m back at the lake in the first week of summer in time to enjoy all these flowers, and the ones that come later.  And to daydream and write about the wonderful gardens we visited in Colorado, where penstemons rule supreme!

 

If you love penstemons (or if I’ve misidentified any), please leave a comment. I love hearing from you.

Designing with Peonies

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It’s June, lovely June and gardens are filled with the romantic perennials of late spring and early summer. The weeds are still manageable (sort of) and the heat hasn’t yet arrived to fry the blossoms. And there are peonies…. the sentimental favourites of a lot of gardeners, especially beginners, who long to grow the perennials they remember from a grandmother’s garden or a farmhouse field. And who doesn’t love peonies, in all their luscious hues from white to deepest red….

….. with many in coral and salmon.

Throw in the Itoh hybrids, and you’ve got beautiful yellows too!

And who doesn’t love peonies in vases?  I made this dinner party arrangement with snowball viburnums.

For my daughter’s wedding shower, I added lupines, which tend to swoon curvaceously.

But mostly, we love them in our gardens. Peonies are beautiful in single-plant collections, of course, but they are wonderful actors in ensemble casts, too. Over the years, I’ve photographed peonies in countless gardens; these are some of my favourite combinations.  Where I have a cultivar name, I’ve added it – but mostly it’s to get a sense of the design possibilities for pairing plants with peonies. Let’s start with some compositions from the Toronto Botanical Garden (TBG). This is the yellow hybrid Baptisia ‘Solar Flare’ with pink and white peonies.

Native Baptisia australis, blue false indigo, is a classic June peony partner.

This is a nice, crisp combination in the Piet Oudolf-designed entry border: Paeonia ‘Krinkled White’ with willowleaf bluestar (Amsonia tabernaomantana var. salicifolia).

In another garden at the TBG, Paeonia ‘Krinkled White’ looks beautiful with catminit (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’) and Allium cristophii.

This is Paeonia lactiflora ‘Edulis Superba’ with Ozark bluestar (Amsonia illustris).

I loved this combination of the Itoh Hybrid peony ‘Morning Lilac’ with catmint (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’).

Sicilian honey lily (Allium siculum) made a nice statement with white-and-green Paeonia lactiflora ‘Green Halo’.

Allium siculum is a great pollinator plant, too!

Isn’t this the perfect June vignette? It features Salvia  x sylvestris ‘Summer Snow’ and camint (Nepeta sp.) with a pink peony.

Foxglove penstemon (Penstemon digitalis), is one of my favourite perennenials. A June-blooming native that is drought-tolerant and adaptable to so many soil situations (at my cottage, it grows in gravel), it also makes a charming companion to peonies, especially a glamour star like ‘Bowl of Beauty’, below.

A single-petaled peony (possibly ‘Sea Shell’?) pairs with the spiderwort Tradescantia ‘Concord Grape’.

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I’ve always loved this bold combination in the Oudolf entry border: Paeonia ‘Buckeye Bell’ with meadow sage, Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’ (‘May Night’).

Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’ also looks wonderful with the unusually-coloured Itoh Hybrid ‘Kopper Kettle’.

Along the entry driveway at the TBG, the Oudolf border features Paeonia ‘Bowl of Beauty’ with graceful llittle flowers of the white form of mourning widow cranesbill (Geranium phaeum ‘Album’), backed by the lilac-purple spires of Phlomis tuberosa ‘Amazone’.

Geranium ’Rozanne’ looks great with everything, but is especially effective with the Itoh Hybrid peony ‘Sequestered Sunshine’.

Let’s head further south in Toronto to the lovely four-square potager of Spadina House Museum. This is what you can expect on a perfect morning in June: a romantic melange of Russell Hybrid lupines, heritage bearded irises and peonies, among other June-bloomers.

Here’s a beautiful and classic combination: pink and purple Russell Hybrid lupines with peonies.

The heirloom French peony Jules Elie’ teams up boldly with old-fashioned yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata) here.

And ‘Jules Elie’ also looks great nestled into variegated maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Variegatus’).

Spadina House contrasts the shimmering white flowers of Paeonia ‘Duchess de Nemours’ against a sober backdrop of blue false indigo (Baptisia australis).

Beside the vegetable garden, mauve Allium cristophii makes an airy companion to pink and white peonies.

Later-flowering alliums, of course, are perfect companions for peonies. Out west at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden, Allium ‘Globemaster’ combines with a late-season single pink peony.

I’ve made notes of effective peony combinations on various garden tours through the years, too. In a beautiful country garden north of Toronto, I found fern-leaved dropwort (Filipendula vulgaris) consorting with a pink peony.

Another classic peony partner is Oriental poppy; this is Papaver orientale ‘Victoria Louse’.

To finish, I give you the prettiest street garden ever, a generous gesture from a Toronto gardener on one of the TBG’s annual tours years ago: yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus) with a dark purple bearded iris and luscious pink Paeonia ‘Jules Elie’.

And for all you gardeners who wouldn’t dream of planting something that pollinators don’t enjoy, rest easy. Provided you plant single or semi-double peonies with lots of pollen-rich stamens exposed, you can usually have your peonies and let bees eat ‘em too!