Tag Archives: design

Pooled Assets in Wiltshire

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While I was eating delicious, home-baked cake in Juliette Mead’s enchanting garden in the village of West Amesbury last June, I had no idea we were sitting just two miles from prehistoric Stonehenge.  It was only later, as we drove out on Stonehenge Avenue past this circular assemblage of 5,000-year-old stones arranged to mark the year’s winter and summer solstice, that I realized that the garden I’d just visited had once shared its chalky soil on the banks of the River Avon with people of the Stone Age. But I was not aware of that bit of geographic trivia when the family dog Ada led our Carex Tours group under a rose-wreathed timber arch into the garden behind the house.

Here, in a courtyard configured in the shelter of the U-shape of the house – originally a row of workers’ houses joined together which, from the road, still wear their original facades – were deep mixed borders and planting beds featuring multi-stemmed ‘Evereste’ crabapples forming the season’s fruit above early summer sages, alliums, irises and peonies.

Crimson roses clambered up the window frames and gold euphorbia gleamed in the afternoon sun.

I had spent the previous afternoon photographing gorgeous roses at Kew Gardens so I loved seeing Juliette’s collection.

In early June, the herbaceous colour palette in England seems to lean to lavenders, purples and blues, such as the Allium cristophii and Salvia nemorosa  paired below. 

But as an insect photographer, it was still tempting to want to photograph every bumble bee I saw, including this one on the starry allium flowers.

We were here on a Carex tour of “New Gardens of England”, including Dan Pearson & Huw Morgan’s Hillside and Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth nearby because, almost 20 years ago, shortly after buying the house, Juliette and her husband Guy Leech hired a friend, the Hertfordshire designer Tom Stuart-Smith, to re-imagine the landscape of their 3.5 acre property. In his career, he has become internationally renowned, working everywhere from India to Marrakech, won eight gold medals and three Best in Show awards at London’s annual Chelsea Flower Show, designed a garden for Queen Elizabeth’s 2002 Jubilee at Windsor Castle and been awarded the Order of the British Empire. But back then, Juliette and Guy had specific objectives: they wanted a lawn for their four children to play sports and host friends; Juliette wanted to cut flowers for bouquets; and Guy wanted a swimming pool, but not a small pool – he wanted to swim serious lengths, thus a minimum of 20 metres was his stipulation.  So, from the courtyard with its traditional deep borders and planting beds lush with grasses surrounding an alfresco dining area, we were led once again by Ada the Alsatian to the stunning walled garden surrounding the 21-metre (68.9 feet) swimming pool.  In the distance you can see the thatched, lime-washed cob wall that is a traditional feature in this part of England.

Though it’s difficult to discern without an overhead photo, the parterre arrangement of dozens of planting beds surrounding the pool has been described by Juliette as a Persian tapestry, and something she enjoys looking down on from the second floor, especially in winter. Phlomis russeliana is among the roster of hard-working plants that flower in June.  By stepping the garden down on this side of the pool and raising it on the far side, Tom Stuart-Smith enhanced the garden view from the house and underplayed the view of the swimming pool behind layers of plants. The new walls in the garden, including above the pool, are zinc-coated steel. At right are beech hedges with a large gap to display the view through meadows and trees to the River Avon.

As I walked around the pool, I was struck by the magical movement of the golden oats grass (Stipa gigantea – Celtica) used extensively in the garden, along with other grasses such as Panicum virgatum ‘Cloud Nine’, Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’and Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Hameln’.  Along with Molinia cultivars like ‘Transparent’ and ‘Skyracer’, Stipa gigantea is one of the best “scrim” or “screen” plants, adding a kinetic quality to a garden while offering a porous veil in front of the scene behind. Interestingly, Juliette was not keen on grasses and had to be talked into including them by Tom; they now make up 40% of the roster and their tawny forms provide much of the winter interest.

The timber decking around the pool has aged to a soft silvery-grey that enhances the turquoise Marbleite pool and looks lovely with the billowing ‘Walker’s Low’ catmint (Nepeta racemosa) that was in peak June bloom.  Looking out over the pool through the break in the beech hedge and a barely-visible iron fence, we see a meadow and trees that line the banks of the River Avon ninety metres away.

The windows at the back of the house look out onto the garden surrounding the sleek pool, which Juliette and Guy specified they did not want hidden behind a fence. Has an exercise setting ever looked so gorgeous? Behind the sun umbrella you can see the soft-grey, low zinc wall.

I seemed to be drawn to the golden oats (Stipa gigantea). What a fabulous grass – sadly not hardy for us in Toronto.

Purple catmint, turquoise pool, mauve sun lounger: this couldn’t be prettier or better coordinated.

 The planting beds around the pool, separated from each other by narrow grass paths, are at their best in mid-summer, but early June’s palette of meadow sage and catmint is dependable and romantic. Here you get a closer look at the thatched cob wall.

I had never come across horned spurge (Euphorbia cornigera) before, but it seems similar to moisture-loving E. palustris.

As I left the pool side of the house, I was struck by the beauty of the Chilean potato vine (Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’) climbing the house wall.

What a stunning vine.

Walking behind the house towards the river, I stood for a moment under the tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) in the lawn. It was the only tree that Tom Stuart-Smith kept from the previous landscape.

Then I walked around  small wetland niches with lush plantings at the bottom of the garden.

Tall stems of pink flowers would soon rise from masses of umbrella plant (Darmera peltata) flanking the water.

There were moisture-loving Siberian irises (Iris sibirica) down there….

…… and luscious Japanese irises (I. ensata) too.  

I walked to the edge of the River Avon, which reflected the idyllic green glades on its shores.  Later, I learned that there are actually nine Avon Rivers in Great Britain, including the one running through Shakespeare’s Stratford-Upon-Avon. The root of the word Avon is “abona” in Celtic or in Welsh, “afon”, which means “river”. So, strictly speaking there are nine “River Rivers”.

Juliette graciously invited us into the house for tea and cakes – a lovely English garden-visit custom……

….. and I can say without exaggeration that she is a talented, inventive cook with a keen eye for presentation.

Then, with a last look at the garden, I turned the corner around the unique flint & limestone wall of the house towards the bus and the journey past Stonehenge towards Bath.

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Want to read more blogs about my English trip in June 2023?

Sissinghurst in Vita’s Sweet June

Boldly Go: June Glory at Great Dixter

Hillside: Dean Pearson and Huw Morgan in Somerset

Malverleys: A Garden of Rooms

Yews Farm – A Brilliant Marriage…. of Boxwood and Beans

Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth

The Newt

Fairy Crown #26-Fall Finery

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For me, autumn is a time of richness as the gardening season nears its end in an explosion of pigments and seedheads.  Those pigments, in particular, have always fascinated me and I made a concerted effort to use brilliant fall foliage colours in my own garden design.  So today’s fairy crown, the 26th, features the fall leaves and fruit of shrubs and trees in my Toronto garden in early November, including Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), Washington thorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum), burning bush (Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’), barberry (Berberis thunbergii ‘Rose Glow’) and, draped down my front, a compound leaf of my black walnut (Juglans nigra).

Every year is a little different in terms of the parade of colour. Here you see my Japanese maple showing off its regular autumn leaf change as the burning bush hedge turns colour. In the pollinator garden, the ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum seedheads are ruby-red, but the fothergilla haven’t begun to change yet. The columnar red maple (upper left) that the city chose for my boulevard (I asked for one that turns red) has taken on its disappointing dishwater-yellow. Red maples, of course, don’t always turn red in fall.

In this photo taken a different year, the fothergilla in the pollinator garden is a rosy-apricot.  That’s catmint in the front giving a nice glaucous contrast with Russian sage and echinacea seedheads adding structure.

From across the street, my neighbours see my garden through the fan-shaped yellow leaves of my second boulevard tree, a ginkgo (G. biloba).  

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you likely know that I’ve had fun turning those yellow leaves….

….. into ballet tutus of tiny dancers.

The Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) I planted in front of my living room window decades ago is a great joy to me. It’s the straight species with green leaves – in Japan it would be a common forest tree.  But in my garden, since there are no drapes on my front window, it forms a lacy curtain from spring (when bees buzz around the tiny May flowers) to fall. In very late October or the first week of November, the foliage turns a range of rich hues from yellow to apricot, scarlet and crimson.

The leaves are delicate, their branching exquisite. It’s no wonder they were the subject of the renowned Japanese woodblock artists like Hiroshige and Kuniyoshi.

As I’ve written before, my Japanese maple’s brilliant autumn colour lights up my living room in early November….

….. enhancing the glass witches’ balls I’ve suspended from the window frame.

And, of course, the leaves also provided me with an appropriate costume and landscape for my little geisha.  

If there’s a saying that “good fences, good neighbours make”, it can also apply to hedges – which was how I ended up making this hedge in my front garden more than 30 years ago. (My current neighbours are lovely!) Today, environmentalists tend to shun burning bush, given its invasive tendency in milder regions, but my hedge produces very few seedlings, unlike the Norway maples in my neighbourhood which are a scourge. And this neon display in autumn is truly amazing.

My belly dancer’s costume was made from the leaves of my burning bush hedge.

Though there’s no fothergilla in my crown, it is definitely a big part of the fall colour in my front garden.  In this photo made just before Halloween, you can see one of my shrubs has turned a rich burgundy-red beneath the Japanese maple.

The richer, more moisture-retentive soil in my pollinator island tends to produce orange and gold colours in the three fothergilla shrubs there.

Look at those colours! Who needs the spring flowers….

…. though they are lovely, if short-lived, in late May.

And, yes, I did harvest my flamenco dancer’s multi-colored skirt from my fothergillas.

Turning colour a little later in the front garden is my paperbark maple (Acer griseum) with its red trifoliate leaves.

Moving into the back garden, you see Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) cloaking the driveway gate.  I didn’t plant this vine, nor did I plant all the Virginia creeper vines that pop up throughout the garden. That’s Mother Nature’s role and she’s very enthusiastic about it (!)

I confess that I wanted the Washington thorn tree (Crataegus phaenopyrum) in my garden long ago purely for its multi-hued fall leaves.

But it turned out to be a wonderful tree for bird life – IF the birds can out-compete the squirrels for the fruit. The robin, below, managed to do that, but so have cedar waxwings and cardinals.

Here you can see the range of autumn colour in the foliage of Washington thorn.

When we bought our house in 1983, the native black walnut tree (Juglans nigra) on the property line between us and our next-door neighbour was already mature. In the 39 years since then, it has hosted raccoon families in the crook of its trunk, carpenter ants in its bark and countless cardinals practising their song in its branches.

Our bedroom sits right under the tree, but we seemed to have missed the obvious ramifications of putting a skylight in our ceiling – particularly when windy nights in September roll around and the roof is pummelled with billiard-ball-sized nuts. Though the skylight has proven strong, we’ve replaced two car windshields since the tree’s branches — and nuts — extend far over the driveway.

The walnuts are enjoyed by the neighbourhood squirrels….

….. but the natural dye in the husks creates an unbelievable mess.

The arborist has told us the tree has rot in the trunk, but my neighbour and I have had it cabled and pruned away some of the branches over our houses to reduce the nut fusillade. It is our tree, after all, it gives us shade and we feel a duty to keep it – thus its inclusion in my 26th crown. 

I don’t really notice the ‘Rose Glow’ barberry (Berberis thunbergii) in my back garden until it turns rich crimson-red in autumn – then it’s a show-stopper. It’s another one of those shrubs that environmentalists shun – especially in milder U.S. regions where it seeds around freely. I haven’t seen one seedling in my Toronto garden.

I have a fairly new addition to my back garden:  a little sassafras tree (S. albidum). which I wanted especially for its fall colour.  This autumn – admittedly one of the best for colour in many years – it has begun to display the reds, corals and yellows for which it is known.

Those colours, by the way, are on leaves that exhibit three distinct shapes:  elliptical; mitten-like and three-lobed.  This is what they look like on my light table.

Designing with and celebrating fall-colored plants and shrubs is my way of expressing my appreciation for nature’s yearly preparation for winter, as it cycles through the yellow/orange “accessory” carotene pigments in the leaves of certain species to harvest and synthesize as much sunshine as possible, once the ‘green’ pigment chlorophyll breaks down in cooler temperatures. Red colour is from anthocynanis. According to the USDA, “Anthocyanins absorb blue, blue-green, and green light. Therefore, the light reflected by leaves containing anthocyanins appears red. Unlike chlorophyll and carotene, anthocyanins are not attached to cell membranes, but are dissolved in the cell sap. The color produced by these pigments is sensitive to the pH of the cell sap. If the sap is quite acidic, the pigments impart a bright red color; if the sap is less acidic, its color is more purple. Anthocyanin pigments are responsible for the red skin of ripe apples and the purple of ripe grapes. A reaction between sugars and certain proteins in cell sap forms anthocyanins. This reaction does not occur until the sugar concentration in the sap is quite high.”   Because the reaction requires light, you often see leaves (or apples) fully exposed to sun that are red while those parts that are shaded stay green or yellow, like these Boston ivy leaves on my fence.

I love making the leaf montages that celebrate these pigment changes, like the one below from leaves in my garden.

A few years ago I even held a photography show called “Autumn Harvest” featuring a number of my leaf montages.

Finally, this week as I walked out onto my front porch and gazed into my garden, this is what I saw– a multi-hued tapestry that shows that nature is the best designer of all. It’s my reward for a gardening season that began seven months ago with the first snowdrops and will soon come to an end with the first hard frost.

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My year of fairy crowns is soon drawing to its wintry finale. If you missed a few, here they are:

#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom
#10 – June Blues on Lake Muskoka
#11 – Sage & Catmint for the Bees
#12 – Penstemons & Coreopsis in Muskoka
#13 – Ditch Lilies & Serviceberries
#14 – Golden Yarrow & Orange Milkweed
#15 – Echinacea & Clematis
#16 – A Czech-German-All American Blackeyed Susan
#17- Beebalm & Yellow Daisies at the Lake
#18- Russian Sage & Blazing Stars
#19-My Fruitful Life
#20-Cup Plant, Joe Pye & Ironweed
#21-Helianthus & Hummingbirds
#22-Grasses, Asters & Goldenrod
#23-Sedums, Pass-Along Plants & Fruit for the Birds
#24-Fall Asters & Showy Goldenrod for Thanksgiving
#25-Autumn Monkshood & Snakeroot

Spring at Brigham Hill Farm

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One of the best things about travelling for me is visiting gardens.  And one of the best things about having pals who are gardeners is the chance to visit beautiful private gardens at the drop of a hat!  So it was that the day after our spectacular May visit to Garden in the Woods in Framingham, MA (see my 2-part blog beginning here), my dear friend Kim Cutler of Worcester MA and Doug and I found ourselves walking up the stone path in front of the pretty yellow house of Kim’s friends, Shirley and Peter Williams at Brigham Hill Farm in North Grafton, MA.  The oldest part of the house dates from approximately 1795 and the property is on land established by Charles Brigham in 1727. According to the Grafton Land Trust, “Charles Brigham was one of the ‘Forty Proprietors’ who were given the grant to settle Grafton by King George II of England. The farm eventually covered most of Brigham Hill and raised fine dairy cows.”

Though Shirley was entertaining a friend in her lovely screened porch….

…. she cheerfully invited us to tour around the property ourselves.

What a gorgeous spot to enjoy the view to the garden without being bothered by insects or inclement weather!

Since it was mid-May, the late tulips were still looking gorgeous and Shirley had filled vases….

….. and bottles with them from her cutting garden.

Off we went past a towering sugar maple tree and stone wall toward the still-awakening perennial garden.

We passed the old, beautifully-restored 18th century barn on the right and more of the amazing stone walls that characterize Brigham Hill.  The house and barn are part of the parcel of land purchased in 1975 by Shirley and Peter Williams.  In time, Shirley and Peter purchased a large, adjacent piece of land and in 2007 they gifted a conservation restriction on the land to the Grafton Land Trust; its name is the Williams Preserve. But in those early days after their children were raised, the house and barn restored and the stone walls rebuilt, they were ready to begin gardening in earnest, at times seeking the expertise of designer/plantsman Warren Leach of Tranquil Lake Nursery in Rehoboth MA.

There were late daffodils and lots of fragrant lilacs nestled beside the stone walls.

Edible gardens are a big summer focus at Brigham Hill but I had never seen an espaliered apple using the heat of a stone wall to produce fruit.

Rhododendrons looked lovely, too.

Though billowing beds in the perennial garden form the focus in this area later in the season, I was happy to find this rustic, little red cedar pergola with….

….. bleeding hearts and Japanese hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) looking fresh and lovely in a shady planting that also featured…

….. a stunning array of Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum) with bloodroot foliage (Sanguinaria canadensis).

I am a great fan of drama in the garden and this Warren Leach-designed dark border at the barn tickled my colour fancy a lot!

The big plants are hardy ‘Grace’ smoke bush (Cotinus hybrid) kept pruned into a columnar shape and tender black cordylines in pots.

At their base were the dark tulip ‘Queen of Night’ and the emerging black leaves of cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’).

Nearby, a cold frame contained an assortment of lush leaf lettuce for spring salads….

… while around the corner were Shirley’s annual seedlings, including varieties of love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena), statice and amaranth.

Across the way, a shade-dappled woodland on a rocky outcrop beckoned to us. At one time, according to a story by Carol Stocker in the Boston Globe, this was originally “a hill overrun by Japanese knotweed and poison ivy.”  Warren Leach found original granite foundation stones from the 18th century barn and “cellar holes” left as remnants of old colonial settler homes and used them to create the pond, rill, small waterfall and rugged stone steps that makes this feature so magical.

I was enchanted by the reflections of the chartreuse spring tree canopy in the pond.

Large granite pieces form sturdy steps…

…. while water bubbles down between stones.

Velvety moss is a major part of the charm of this garden….

…. but it is also a garden of sedges and woodland plants including greater yellow ladyslipper (Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens)….

…. which is such an iconic native orchid for the northeast….

… and Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum)…

…. and crested iris (I. cristata).

This was a pretty combination of Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) with yellow wood poppies (Stylophorum diphyllum) and ostrich ferns (Matteucia struthiopteris).

Rhododendrons were flowering with the ferns in the woodland, too, and….

…. at the very edge, tulips grew in a carpet of Virginia bluebells.

Back out in the open, late-season tulips were still looking good in Shirley’s raised cutting bed.  What a luxury, to have armfuls of tulips for vases!

Next up was the chicken coop with its succulent green-roof planted with sempervivums or (haha) “hens-and-chicks” – a nice pad for the resident hens.

Strawberry plants were flowering behind critter-proof protective mesh.

Caned berry bushes have their own enclosure.

The back of the house with its dining terrace features more stone walls, their geometric lines echoed in the clipped hedges. Later, colourful perennials will emerge in the beds here. Those stone steps lead into the walled vegetable garden, still unplanted.

If you visit a garden in May, you see spring things, but I did regret not being able to see the large, raised-bed vegetable parterre behind the stone wall in summer.

Trees, both in the native forest on the property and cultivated in the garden, are a focus at Brigham Hill Farm.  This featherleaf Japanese maple is a good example, as are…

…. the trees in the “arboretum”, including native flowering dogwood (Cornus florida)…

…. which looked resplendent against the blue May sky.  

We circled around to the front of the house and met Shirley’s guest, Kathleen Ladd, departing with a giant bouquet of freshly-cut lilacs and tulips, a lovely gesture from a gardener who also shares the expansive beauty of Brigham Hill Farm with many charities and groups for fundraising events

Kathleen Ladd with bouquet of lilacs and tulips from Shirley Williams's garden.

At the gate, we said farewell to my friend, gardener and well-known potter Kim Cutler (left), and to Shirley Williams, thanking her for her generosity in sharing her garden with us, strangers from Canada!  It was a highlight of our spring road trip.  (Stay tuned for Chanticleer!)

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Want to see some of the other inspiring private gardens I’ve photographed?
Here is Katerina Georgi’s garden in Greece 
This is tequila expert Lucinda Hutson’s fabulous garden in Austin, TX
The spectacular Denver CO garden of Rob Proctor & David Macke
The Giant’s House in Akaroa NZ – a mosaic masterpiece
Architect & art collector Sir Miles Warren’s garden Ohinetahi in NZ
Garden designer Barbara Katz’s gorgeous garden in Bethesda, MD
My friend and plantswoman Marnie Wright’s garden in Bracebridge ON  

Designing with Perennial Geraniums

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Late spring… early summer… it’s flight time for the ‘cranesbills’ – all those lovely perennial geraniums that add that soft, billowy, romantic effect to perennial borders. Over the years, I’ve collected a series of combinations featuring many of these valuable perennials. Perhaps you might find some inspiration in those that follow – the bees will certainly appreciate it!

Our North American native spotted or wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) gets its name because of the spots on its leaves. Here it is with native golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea) at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Here is G. maculatum with Welsh poppy (Papaver cambricum) at VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver.

In my own garden, below, I grew Geranium maculatum under Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum). I must check to see if it’s still there, or if it’s been swamped by the aggressive Solomon’s seals.

G. maculatum looked lovely amidst hostas at Chanticleer Garden outside Philadelphia.

I just saw this combination at the Toronto Botanical Garden a few weeks ago:  Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica ‘Excelsior’) with bigroot geranium (G. macrorrhizum ‘Czakor’).

Also at the TBG, here is the variegated form of bigroot geranium (G. macrorrhizum ‘Variegatum’) with catmint (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’).

Bloody cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum) is a popular, early-flowering cranesbill with magenta blossoms. Here it is with Phlox carolina at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

It makes an attractive, front-of-border mound, below, along with lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis).

This was an interesting monochromatic combination, of bloody cranesbill with Dianthus ‘Oakington Hybrid’.

I thought this was a pretty June border on a garden tour: bloody cranesbill with Siberian iris and bearded iris.

I believe the cranesbill below is Geranium sanguineum ‘Max Frei’, partnering with Veronica ‘Glory’ at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

There’s a pale-pink form of bloody cranesbill, G. sanguineum var. striatum (formerly G. lancastriense), that makes a very pretty partner to late forget-me-nots.

Peonies offer a vast palette of possibilities as cranesbill companions, including the spectacular Itoh Hybrid intersectional peonies (herbaceous-shrub crosses). Below is ‘Cora Louise’ with Geranium’ Brookside at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Here’s lovely ‘Brookside’ (G. clarkei x G.pratense) with Sicilian honey lily (Allium siculum)….

….. and with Campanula ‘Sarastro’…..

….. and Veronica longifolia ‘Eveline’ and Achillea tomentosa ‘Moonlight’ at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Here is ‘Brookside’ clambering around the wine-red flowers of Knautia macedonica, also at the TBG.

Geranium Rozanne® (‘Gerwat’) is a similar-looking cranesbill, but a cross between G. himalayense x G. wallachinianum ‘Buxton’s Variety’. Very popular and long-flowering, it was the Perennial Plant Association’s 2008 Plant of the Year. Here it is with the yellow Itoh peony hybrid ‘Sequestered Sunshine’….

….. and billowing atop lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis).

Rozanne adds a little lavender ‘zing’ to this green vignette of Molinia caerulea ‘Variegata’ and the striped leaves of Iris pallida ‘Variegata’.

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Flowering shrubs such as hydrangea can be enhanced by an underplanting of many varieties of cranesbill, like the unidentified one below.

The pale-pink flowers of French cranesbill (Geranium endressii) add a delicate note to Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum).

Magenta Armenian cranesbill (G. psilostemon) is rather fleeting in bloom, but looks lovely with Bowman’s root (Porteranthus trifoliatus, syn. Gillenia), below, at the TBG.

Just around the corner, it was used with tufted hair grass (Deschampsia cespitosa) in a lush design.

At wonderful Chanticleer Garden near Philadelphia (have you read my 2-part blog on this favourite garden?), I found G.psilostemon looking spectacular with chartreuse meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria ‘Aurea’).

Out at Vancouver’s VanDusen Botanical Gardens one spring (another favourite garden I’ve blogged about), I was taken with this vignette featuring the hybrid Geranium ‘Brempat’ with Allium cristophii and dark Heuchera ‘Crimson Curls’.

Nearby at VanDusen was the dark-coloured mourning widow cranesbill Geranium phaeum ‘Samobor’ emerging in a chartreuse sea of Bowles’ golden grass (Millium effusum ‘Aureum’).

The delicate-looking but vigorous mourning widow geranium has a white form (Geranium phaeum ‘Album’) that Piet Oudolf uses in his designs, including with Baptisia ‘Purple Smoke’ in the entry border at the Toronto Botanical Garden. (I’ve also written a 2-part blog about Piet’s design for this border.)

I also loved the way he interplanted Paeonia ‘Bowl of Beauty‘ just coming into flower with the white-flowered mourning widow.

This delicate, monochromatic combination, also in the Oudolf–designed entry border at the TBG features Geranium x oxonianum ‘Rose Claire’ with Astrantia ‘Roma’.

Hostas and cranesbills always look good together, as demonstrated by Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘Biokovo’, below.

Geranium clarkei ‘Kashmir Purple’ makes an interesting contrast to the tiny white flowers of flowring sea kale (Crambe cordifolia).

Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’ is an old-fashioned hybrid, a cross between G. himalayense and G. pratense. Doesn’t it look spectacular with the purple bellflowers (Campanula latifolia var. macrantha) and meadow sage (Salvia nemorosa) flanking the rose garden at Vancouver’s VanDusen Botanical Garden below?

Purple always works with chartreuse, and G. Johnson’s Blue’ is the perfect companion to Heuchera ‘Lime Rickey’.

Toronto’s Spadina House is my favourite cottage garden in the world, with a mass of artful flowers tumbling around expansive vegetable gardens. Meadow cranesbill (Geranium pratense) is much-used in the garden, as with lanceleaf coreposis (C. lanceolata), below….

….. and foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea)….

….. and small yellow foxglove (D. lutea).

I also found it growing in the fabulous Denver garden of plantsman Panayoti Kelaidis and his partner Jan Fahs. This romantic planting of roses, gas plant (Dictamnus albus var. purpureus) and G. pratense is actually Jan’s domain! (And, of course, I wrote a blog about PK and Jan’s garden.)

When I was having dinner at the spectacular Deep Cove Chalet restaurant in Victoria, B.C. one spring, I was enchanted by this unusual and richly-coloured combination:  G. pratense with peach alstroemeria, yellow Phlomis russeliana and pink spirea.

Though most cranesbills flower from late spring into early-mid-summer, there are a few species that hit their stride in late summer and continue blooming well into fall. I saw one of them one August at the Piet Oudolf-designed Lurie Garden in Chicago (another fantastic garden from my blog). For my final homage to the versatile cranesbills, meet pink-flowered Japanese cranesbill (G. soboliferum) with lilac prairie petunia (Ruellia humilis).

Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’

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Every now and then, I find a plant I adore and decide it needs a little homegrown public relations campaign. This long, cool spring with its attendant air of strange melancholy courtesy of Covid-19 was the backdrop for the month-long flowering of a little daffodil I originally saw at the Toronto Botanical Garden in 2012. This is Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’, paired with the lovely yellow-throated pink Triumph tulip ‘Tom Pouce’.

I made a note of how much I liked the daffodil and finally ordered 2 packages of 25 last summer from my friend Caroline deVries’s company FlowerBulbsRUs (she also has a wholesale business for designers and retail outlets). Come November, I wore my fancy, paint-splattered, rubber clogs and proceeded to dig my bulbs into my front yard meadow/pollinator garden.

This is what happens when your box of bulbs takes a photo of you in your 1980s car coat with the broken zipper that has stained more fences with you – and planted more tulips and daffodils – than you care to recall.

Fast forward to April 29th this spring and the bulbs in my little pollinator island.  This was a full month after the first species crocuses emerged on March 20th, followed by a blue sea of Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) and glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii) in April. I wrote in praise of all the “little bulbs” in an earlier blog this spring. The following day, I made my first portrait of Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’.

The daffodil world has its own rules, traditions and famous breeder names, many of them in England and Ireland. But there are notable North American personalities who have produced the so-called American Hybrids. One of those was Oregon’s Grant Mitsch (1907-1989), who bred ‘Pipit’, ‘Accent’ and ‘Dicksissel’. But it was Brent C. Heath, below at his farm and business Brent & Becky’s Bulbs in Gloucester, VA, who crossed the European jonquil or rush daffodil (Narcissus jonquilla)  with an old Irish long-cupped daffodil ‘Ballygarvey’ (pre-1947) to come up with the sweet ‘Golden Echo’ daffodil I’ve fallen in love with this spring. It’s the one filling the rows in the thousands below. Though he had grown it for more than a decade, it was registered in 2014 and won the Wister Award the following year.  Brent is the third generation of mail-order bulb farmers at the farm his grandfather started in 1900; now his son has become the fourth generation. Becky is president of Heath Enterprises, Ltd. I’ve known them both since I joined Gardencomm (Formerly the Garden Writers Association) more than two decades ago.

On May 2nd  of this cool, long spring, the little Greek windflowers (Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’) were fully-open pools of lavender and the Tulipa praestans ‘Shogun’ had come into flower. Both complimented ‘Golden Echo’ beautifully.

When I decided to remove the old dwarf conifers that had grown too big for this island and replace them with a suite of perennials that would attract pollinators (here’s my video of a full year in the garden, made before planting ‘Shogun’ and ‘Golden Echo’)…..

…..adding lots of spring bulbs was just a seasonal bonus. (However, I did see honey bees gathering pollen from the crocuses early on and I’ve written about native cellophane bees on my Scilla siberica.)  But mostly it’s just to add preliminary colour to a garden I consider my gift to the neighbourhood.

In fact, that day I introduced myself to two women taking their daily walks at an appropriate, self-isolating distance from each other. As one snapped a few photos, they told me they loved seeing my garden change over the weeks since late March.

Here we see that fabulous apricot-gold ‘Shogun’ tulip with ‘Golden Echo’ and the purple-blue highlights of windflower and grape hyacinth.

Meanwhile in the main garden on the other side of the path, the big Fosteriana Tulipa ‘Orange Emperor’ was adding to the orange theme, just as the pink hyacinths were fading.

I made a lot of little nosegay bouquets this spring, including these ones on May 6th. ‘Golden Echo’ is in the one on the right, along with the pure white Narcissus ‘Stainless’ and the peach-trumpeted ‘Pink Accent’.  In the arrangement on the left are snakeshead fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagaris), Rhododendron ‘P.J.M.”, Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) and the wonderful white Triandrus daffodil Narcissus ‘Thalia’.


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Meanwhile, in the main garden on May 6th, ‘Thalia’ was the star, along with the first flowers of the big Darwin Hybrid tulip ‘Pink Impression’.  And, of course, ‘Golden Echo’.

On May 7th, I zeroed in on this pretty pairing: ‘Golden Echo’ with the fascinating flowers of the broad-leaved grape hyacinth (Muscari latifolium) from the mountains of Turkey. The dark-blue flowers on the bottom are fertile; whereas the azure-blue flowers on the top are sterile.

May 13th saw me including ‘Golden Echo’ in a tiny bouquet along with the clove-scented Tazetta Narcissus ‘Geranium’, the lovely, orange-flowered lily tulip ‘Ballerina’ and the first blue forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica). In the background are a few sprigs of forsythia. ‘Geranium’ is a personal favourite daffodil, one I included in a blog titled White Delight: Four Perfumed Daffodils to Tempt You.

By May 17th, you can see the green leaves of lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) – or, as I call it ‘guerilla-of-the-valley’ – at the bottom right of this photo. Indeed, it is hugely invasive in my garden, but I tolerate it creeping around everything since it doesn’t seem to affect the emergence of the summer perennials. And, of course, I did make good use of it the years I used it to decorate the hats I wore to our botanical garden’s spring party.

It’s funny;  I thought I wanted white daffodils exclusively in my garden, like ‘Accent’ in the foreground, but the soft yellow of ‘Golden Echo’ isn’t as obtrusive as the ballpark-yellow of some of the early daffodils like ‘King Alfred’ and ‘Carlton’. It fits into my multicoloured scheme very nicely, with forget-me-nots creating little clouds of pale-blue.

By May 22nd , my Fothergilla gardenii shrubs began to open their white, bottlebrush flowers.

Though the ‘Shogun’ tulips in the pollinator island were long gone by then and the flowerheads removed (I always leave the foliage to ripen and turn yellow in order to feed next year’s bulb), little ‘Golden Echo’ was still flowering bravely amidst the emerging leaves of echinacea, rudbeckia, salvia and sedum.

On May 23rd, I photographed it with the first flowers of Camassia leichtleinii ‘Caerulea’, a bulb that is as short-lived in flower as ‘Golden Echo’ is long-lived.

In fact, if the cool Covid spring of 2020 had not given way to sweltering temperatures this week, I believe sweet ‘Golden Echo’ might have flowered for another week or so, since the bulbs put up new flower stems that bloom sequentially, rather than all at once. Nevertheless, I was delighted on May 23rd to make my final bouquet featuring Brent Heath’s lovely little hybrid daffodil, along with lily-of-the-valley, common grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum), camassia and sweet-scented Burkwood’s viburnum (V. x burkwoodii).  By my count, that was almost four full weeks in bloom.

That night, it graced our outdoor table and the sixth take-out Covid meal we ordered from local restaurants to support them – and to give me a break from cooking. Hopefully, the restaurants will be back in business completely soon. I know that ‘Golden Echo’ will be back next spring, and the springs after that.

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To order Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’ in Canada, visit FlowerBulbsRUs. If you order before August 31, there’s a discount built into the price and free shipping for orders above $75.

To order it in the United States, visit Brent & Becky’s Bulbs.