Ornamental Grasses in Winter

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Janet

Here we are in January, and the snow is flying outside my office window this morning. I often make fun of those ‘designing your garden for winter’ tips, because the reality in a climate like ours (unlike those beautiful European gardens with picturesque hoar frost ) is that heavy, wet snow or layers of ice from freezing rain tend to demolish the winter architecture of non-woody perennials and ornamental grasses. I mean, seriously: the photo below is my Toronto back garden after a big snowstorm. No matter how persistent the winter structure of the plants, if nothing can actually be seen, it’s just a notion that doesn’t hold water. (Unless it’s frozen.)

Speaking of “frozen”, freezing rain or sleet can be not only beautiful, but quite dramatic in its effects in the garden. Below are winter arrangements in containers on my back deck featuring Carex ‘Red Rooster’ and southern magnolia leaves, among other things, on December 22, 2013, the day after Toronto’s historic ice storm. Look how the ice has coated each tawny blade. As beautiful as it was that morning, tinkling in the freezing air, that carex does not have the presence to be a player in the winter garden where I live.

Neither does Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuissima), though it looked lovely in my front pot at the beginning of winter (left over from my summer arrangement).

So what ornamental grasses are effective in the winter garden in our climate (Can. Zone 6b, USDA Zone 5), before it gets a 3-foot dump of snow, that is? For that, I like to use Toronto’s wonderful Music Garden as a beautiful illustration of the power of grasses to draw lines and create texture, even in snowy weather. Look at this combination of ‘Hameln’ fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides), front, with Chinese maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis) and its feathery plumes in the rear.

The low grass lining the curved path is again, ‘Hameln’ fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides) and Chinese maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis) on the right.

Here is ‘Hameln’ fountain grass with echinacea seedheads left to feed winter birds at the Music Garden.

You can see, below, why fountain grass got its name.

This very upright grass is ‘Karl Foerster’ feather grass (Calamagrostis acutiflora) in winter.

Here is ‘Karl Foerster’ feather grass with Toronto’s city skyline behind.

Though Northern sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium) doesn’t have quite the presence of some of the bigger grasses, it still manages to stay intact through early winter.

For more wintry grasses, let’s head on over to the Toronto Botanical Garden in late December or January. Here is a stand of switch grass (Panicum virgatum) in the spectacular Piet Oudolf-designed entry border. This native grass is a very good choice for a winter garden, and popular with the birds in autumn as well.

These are the neat hummocks of grey moor grass (Sesleria nitida) under a fresh snowfall. (I changed this from S. autumnalis, when I discovered the planting plan.)

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Japanese hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra) is often hiding under the snow, but makes a bronze-gold splash in early winter.

Similarly, blue fescue (Festuca glauca ‘Blue Glow’) is rather small to make a big impression in winter, but it offers texture in the first part at any rate.

And our native little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) looks lovely with a light dusting of snow, but gets lost as the snow deepens.

This is Korean feather grass (Calamagrosis brachytricha), which does persist fairly well through a few snows.

After freezing rain, you can often find ice crystals in the flowers of grasses like Korean feather grass.

Chinese maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis) is a dependable winter fixture at the TBG….

….. and its big plume flowers look lovely with snow.

I love the way the narrow leaves of Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’ curl in winter. This is March – not bad for 3 full months of the toughest season.

It’s a good idea to leave ornamental grasses through winter, providing another element of beauty for this long, desolate season. I like to time cutting them down in late winter or early spring, when the ground is still frozen, so I can walk freely around some of the bigger stands. This was April 28^th one year at the cottage – and I find a pair of shears does the trick.

Or, if you’re feeling brave, you could always follow the example of this gardener at the Music Garden, seen using a chainsaw to cut down the big grasses on April 23^rd of the same year.

That’s a starter kit, anyway. This weekend, I’m heading up to our cottage on Lake Muskoka. The lake should be well on its way to freezing over and, depending on how much snow has fallen, I may glimpse a few flowers of switch grass poking out. Stay warm!

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.

It is made to last for a longer time. you can try this out prescription du canada viagra They have found the viagra active PDE5 body enzyme becomes unable to cause impotency in man’s body. Purchase Your Medication without Prescription A number of online pharmacies which provide you viagra sale no prescription at your doorstep. In case you are experiencing sexual dysfunction designed a diminished libido, cialis generic cipla and 69-74 had trouble achieving orgasm. One of the magical, airy plants in Dutch designer Piet Oudolf’s palette is the dark form of Japanese burnet (Sanguisorba tenuifolia ‘Purpurea’) at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

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 One

Posted on October 23, 2016 by Janet

Well, it’s now October and I resolved back on January 1^st to devote my Paintbox blog this month to the colour orange. Or, as I’ve called it in my title, ‘three fruits and a fish’, which pokes a little fun at the way the English language learned to describe colours, long before Isaac Newton first focused a prism on sunlight and conjured up the ‘visible light’ spectral rainbow in his college room.

“Three fruits and a fish” is not a balanced diet, but a plateful of related colour: orange, peach, apricot and salmon. (And in the interest of trivia, did you know that the fruit orange is classified as a hesperidium or modified berry? I thought not! Peaches and apricots, of course, are drupes or simple stone fruits. You’re welcome.) We all know what a navel orange or sockeye salmon flesh looks like, but what distinguishes peaches and apricots? Well, Wiki defines apricot as a “pale, yellowish-orange color” (or, as I say, halfway from orange to gold), and peach as a “light moderate to strong yellowish-pink to light orange colour” (my emphasis on the pink here, but without sufficient blue pigment to tip it completely into that candyfloss hue).

And what colour is salmon? Wiki says it’s “a range of pale pinkish-orange to light pink colors, named after the color of salmon flesh.” I would disagree with the “pale” part, unless you’re talking about spring salmon J. (Then again, Wiki has this painful, hair-splitting dissertation further down the page: “The color light-salmon is displayed at right. This is a color that resembles the color salmon, but is lighter, not to be confused with dark salmon, which resembles salmon pink but is darker than salmon pink and much darker than light salmon.” Confused yet?) I think of salmon as being a rich colour, as shown in the tropical plants Acalypha wilkesiana and Abutilon, below, in a container at the Toronto Botanical Garden…

Placing my colour arrays together, below you can see more clearly the difference in (clockwise from top left): orange, salmon, peach and apricot.

Orange Array: Tulipa ‘Ballerina’; Florist’s ranunculus (Ranunculus asiaticus); ‘Red Chief’ California poppies (Eschscholzia californica); Iceland poppy (Papaver nudicaule); ‘Tokajer’ blanket flower(Gaillardia x grandiflora); quince (Chaenomeles x superba); Potentilla ‘William Rollson’; butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa); ‘Bonfire’ begonia (Begonia boliviensis); Dahlia ‘Pooh’; Helenium autumnale ‘Rubinzwerg’; Canna ‘Phaison’
Salmon Array: Tulipa ‘Mariette’; ‘Bowles Red’ lungwort (Pulmonaria); ‘Spicy Lights’ azalea (Rhododendron); ‘Venus’ opium poppy (Papaver somniferum); ‘Pardon Me’ daylily (Hemerocallis); ‘Coral Reef’ beebalm (Monarda didyma); Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Coralberry Punch’; Rosa ‘Carefree Celebration‘; Echinacea ‘Secret Lust’; Diascia ‘Darla Apricot’; Zinnia elegans ‘Benary’s Giant Salmon Rose‘; Dahlia ‘Bodacious’
Peach Array: Tulipa ‘Angelique’; Hyacinth ‘Gipsy Queen’; Itoh Peony ‘Kopper Kettle’ (Paeonia); Oriental poppy ‘Victoria Louise’ (Papaver orientale); Heuchera ‘Marmalade’; Dutch honeysuckle (Lonicera periclyneum ‘Serotina’); Rosa ‘Marilyn Monroe’; Lilium ‘Visa Versa’; ‘Comanche’ waterlily (Nymphaea); Chrysanthemum ‘Sheffield Pink’ (Dendranthema ); daylily ‘Designer Jeans’ (Hemerocallis); Alstroemeria
Apricot Array: Narcissus ‘Fidelity’; Tulipa ‘Cairo’; Pansy ‘Imperial Antique Shades Apricot’; Iris ‘Sunny Dawn’: Heuchera ‘Caramel’; Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Peach’; Rose ‘Honey Perfume’; Nasturtium ‘Whirlybird Series‘ (Tropaeolum majus); Dahlia ‘Sunshine’; Gerbera; Sedum rubrotinctum ‘Aurora’; African daisy (Osteospermum ‘Symphony Series Orange‘)

Looking at the artist’s colour wheel, below, which is essentially a rainbow curved into a circle to illustrate in a visual way the relationships between spectral colours, we see 6 hues marked with a letter. The three marked “P” are defined as primary colours: red, yellow, blue. By combining equal parts of those primary colours with their neighbouring primary colour, we come up with the secondary colours shown and labelled “s”. It is more complicated than that (and of course there are tertiary colours and darker shades and lighter tints) but the point I’m making is that if our gardens were paintings, the visually pleasing ‘complementary contrast’ to the secondary colour orange is the primary colour blue. Keeping in mind that that artist’s colour wheel is just one of several ways of ‘organizing’ colour (the primary colours of light are an entirely different subject), on my power point slide below, orange wallflowers (Erysimum) are perfectly paired with deep blue forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica).

And that’s not to say that orange ‘Beauty of Apeldoorn’ tulips, below, wouldn’t look as lovely with yellow or dark pink flowers as neighbours, but the relationship of the colours blue and orange is inherently a pleasing one to our eyes. And from long observation, I’d add that orange flowers also look good paired with violet, purple and lavender blossoms as well.

Because I love the colour orange and have spent a lot of time observing this colour in gardens and nature, I’ve collected photos of myriad plants with orange flowers (and colour companions for those), as well as plants with orange berries and orange fall leaf colour. (Read my blog on orange autumn leaves here.) I’ve even assigned orange-coloured plants to their growth type and seasons, below.

Spring Bulbs

So let’s explore orange in the garden beginning with some of my favourite spring blossoms, then hardy summer bulbs and perennials. In my next colour blog, I’ll talk about orange-flowered and orange-leafed roses, shrubs, tropicals and annuals. And let’s begin – as the flowering year does – with crocuses. Who doesn’t love a good apricot-orange crocus, like C. x luteus ‘Golden Yellow’? Honey bees do, I can assure you.

I’m a sucker for perfumed hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis) – I buy a few dozen every couple of years, and love them even better when their form relaxes in years 2 and 3. (But don’t count on them hanging around forever.) If I were planting hyacinths with little blue bulbs like striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides), I’d definitely choose peach-orange ‘Gipsy Queen’, below.

Then there are daffodils. Have you grown any split-corona or butterfly types? One of the most spectacular is also one of the most pronounced “orange” daffs. Meet ‘Orangery’.

Since I’m a gardener who enjoys naturalistic, meadow-style gardening, I can’t say I’ve ever been a great fan of the big crown imperial fritillaries – a bit too stiff for me. But you must admit that Fritillaria imperialis ‘Rubra Maxima’ would make a splash, especially in a formal garden.

Orange tulips like lovely ‘Beauty of Apeldoorn’ pictured above are fairly common, and personally, I love planting them with pink tulips, because winter is just too long and cold not to celebrate with a riot of warm colour in spring. Here are some of my other orange favourites: 1 – Orange Emperor, 2 – Daydream, 3 – Irene Parrot, 4 – El Niño, 5 – General deWet, and 6 – Ballerina.

The lily-flowered tulip ‘Ballerina’ deserves special mention. It really is a wonderful dancer.

And I cannot leave tulips without paying tribute to one of the peacocks of the spring bulb world: the parrot tulip. This is ‘Salmon Parrot’. It won’t last long – it’s definitely not a ‘perennializer’ – but if you’re this stunning, you don’t need to hang around forever.

Hardy Bulbs

Hardy lilies (Lilium) in shades of orange are a dime-a-dozen too, and I’ve gathered a few combinations featuring purplish perennials. There’s old fashioned speckled tiger-lily (Lilium lancifolium), here consorting fetchingly with ‘Fascination’ Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum).

And one of my newest favourites, Lilium henryi, shown here with hoary skullcap (Scutellaria incana) in the Piet Oudolf-designed Seasonal Border at the New York Botanical Garden.

Should you desire some knock ‘em dead perfume in the summer garden, you can always plant a few ‘African Queen’ trumpet lilies. Mmmm…..

But for the world’s most delicate, elegant lilies, you need a martagon or two, especially in conditions of light shade. On the left, below, is ‘Sing Out’, on the right ‘Burnt Orange’.

Where it’s hardy (Zone 6), Crocosmia ‘Emily McKenzie’, a corm that is planted in early spring, is a wonderful deep-orange hit for the garden. And like all crocosmias, it’s a hummingbird favourite. I loved the double-header below at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Gardens with ‘Emily McKenzie’ in the foreground and an orange Helenium autumnale (perhaps ‘Rubinzwerg’) in the rear, sandwiching a white echinacea.

Stately foxtail lilies (Eremurus), though considered a ‘fleshy root’ rather than a bulb, are nonetheless often sold in autumn along with bulbs. They can be orange, white, yellow and peach and add a gorgeous vertical note to early summer plantings (plus bees adore them). I thought this joyous planting of Eremurus ‘Cleopatra’ with corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) in a mixed meadow planting of annuals and perennials at Chanticleer Gardens in Wayne, PA was one of the prettiest combinations I’ve seen.

Here it is again, showing the entire Rock Ledge Garden at Chanticleer. That’s dark purple Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ at the bottom.

Perennials

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While on one of my late spring visits to Vancouver’s Van Dusen Gardens, I was wowed by this mass waterside planting of Euphorbia griffithi ‘Fireglow’.

And there are beautiful orange primulas for damp places in spring. Look for Primula bulleyana, below….

… and the rich orange form of cowslip (Primula veris).

The best peonies can do in the orange department is coral, which is just a teensy bit redder than salmon. But there are some beauties, including the four below, clockwise from upper left: ‘Constance Spry’, ‘Coral Sunset’, ‘Coral Supreme’ and ‘Lorelei’.

There are some luscious peaches in the Itoh Peony group (hybrids between tree peony and herbaceous peony), including ‘Kopper Kettle’, below, with Salvia nemorosa ‘May Night’.

The genus Papaver boasts many orange-flowered species, but none are more flamboyant than old-fashioned Oriental poppy. This is Papaver orientale ‘Prince of Orange’.

And you will always find bees and hoverflies on wonderful little Moroccan poppy (Papaver atlanticum ‘Flore-Pleno), which is surprisingly hardy (USDA Zone 5) and easy to grow in all soils.

Bearded irises are the prima donnas of the early summer garden, and you can find them in the most wonderful shades of peach, bronze and clear orange, like the tall bearded ‘Orange Impact’, below.

I was intrigued to find beautiful copper iris (Iris fulva) growing on New York’s High Line. Honey bees had found it too, but its natural pollinators in the Mississippi Valley are hummingbirds. This orange-flowered member of the Louisiana Iris group likes damp (even wet), slightly acidic soil and is supposedly hardy to USDA Zone 5.

Verbascums can be found in apricot-orange (‘Helen Johnson’ among others), but this delicate June pairing in pale peach caught my eye at Toronto’s Casa Loma: Verbascum ‘Southern Charm’ and Sicilian honey lily (Allium siculum, formerly Nectaroscordum).

One genus that’s seen a lot of hybridizing in recent decades is red-hot poker or torch lily (Kniphofia). Since they grow naturally in hues of orange or yellow, there is an abundance of choice here. I loved this fun mingling of Allium ‘Lucille Ball’ and Kniphofia ‘Flamenco’ at Chanticleer, in Wayne, PA.

And don’t forget about heucheras; they’re a treasure trove of peach and bronze-orange foliage possibilities. Here’s Heuchera ‘Caramel’ with dwarf Kniphofia ‘Mango Popsicle’.

Daylilies, of course, offer a motherlode of orange choices, not just in orange, shown in a few samples below (Clockwise from top left: Hemerocallis fulva ‘Kwanso’, Kansas, Challenger, Lady Lucille, Rosalind, Furnaces of Babylon)….

…. but there are loads of peach (left) and apricot (right) cultivars, below, too. And note that in the daylily world, “lavender” is often (peachy) wishful thinking. (Top, left to right: Uptown Girl, Strawberry Candy, Chicago Peach, Second Glance; Middle: Empress Josephine, Designer Jeans, Scatterbrain, Ellen Christine; Bottom: Lavender Illusion, Lavender Patina, Brookwood Double Precious, Fan Dancer).

Daylilies are so prolific and varied in colour, they can be forgiven their need for constant deadheading and propensity to browning foliage in late summer, etc. So they’re best paired with other plants, like this duo at the New York Botanical Garden: Hemerocallis ‘Poinsettia’ with balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorum).

The vast daylily collection at Montreal Botanical Garden offers lots of brilliant ideas for partnering, including this bronze-orange ‘Chelsey’ helenium (Helenium autumnale) with lovely Hemerocallis ‘Cherokee Pass’.

One of the best perennials for dry gardens is hybrid blanket flower (Gaillardia x grandiflora). Provided you keep it deadheaded, it will flower from early summer well into autumn, and the bees will thank you. Though most are bicoloured red-yellow or red, I have grown a beautiful orange one: G. x grandiflora ‘Tokajer’. It lasted for three years or so, and I missed it terribly when it didn’t come back one spring, possibly after a winter without sufficient snow cover.

I’ve written before about my favourite orange-flowered perennial, butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), which is simply unparalleled for attracting pollinators (including the monarch butterfly, which uses it as a larval food).

And it’s fun if you want to create a little heat, colour-wise, as I’ve done below, pairing it at my cottage with bright-red ‘Firebird’ echinacea.

Speaking of heat, orange flowers are often the backbone of hot-coloured schemes in the garden, whether paired with reds and golds, as with Echinacea ‘Tangerine Dream’ and ‘Secret Glow’, below….

… or with hot-pinks, below. On the left is butterfly milkweed with the pink ‘Orienpet’ lily ‘Robina’, on the right is the double daylily Hemerocallis ‘Kwanso’, with a bright pink summer phlox.

That’s a good first look at hardy orange bulbs and perennials. Next time, we’ll explore orange-flowered shrubs, annuals and tropicals, and a few design touches to add a little orange punch to your garden.

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!

A Niagara Garden Tour (in Three Acts)

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Janet

In June, I had the pleasure of spending several days touring local gardens with a gang of 65 garden bloggers from across North America and England. Part busman’s holiday, part chance to see my region afresh through the eyes of others, the Garden Bloggers’ Fling was a really fun experience One of my favourite Fling days was our trip to the Niagara region, culminating with a walking tour of three gardens in Niagara-on-the-Lake. A pretty little town about 20 minutes east of Niagara Falls, NOTL is a tourist mecca for its flowery main street filled with shops, its restaurants and its neighbouring vineyards, but mostly for the annual Shaw Festival – six months of theatre highlighting the plays of George Bernard Shaw and other playwrights whose works touch on societal mores.

As we walked through the three spectacular town gardens that had just been featured on the NOTL Garden Tour,it occurred to me that each could have been the leafy set of its very own theatrical production.

Pygmalion

Our first garden was a little bit of Victorian heaven, in which I could easily imagine Henry Higgins striding about, snipping at the boxwood parterres while Eliza Doolittle followed him, ogling the blossoms like the Cockney flower vendor she was while practicing her phonetics. “The rine, in Spine, falls minely on the pliiine….”. The formal parterres were arrayed around a Victorian armillary sundial, each square enclosing shimmering white peonies and a kousa dogwood. Beyond lay a perfect patch of lawn attended by four nymphs. Indeed, in ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion (on whom G B Shaw patterned his play) fell in love with a statue – perhaps one that looked just like these draped beauties.

At the rear of the garden, behind a rectangular pool with fountain and four urns was a lovely Victorian garden temple in the most sublime mustard with khaki-green columns. On either side, more tiny, perfect buildings… guesthouses, perhaps?

All the furnishings had a prim Victorian air, including a cast iron cherub standing triumphantly atop a turtle, and a pretty Grecian-inspired urn in front of a cast-iron table and chairs.

There was about this garden an air of the folly, its elements designed to evoke a different era, a different world, a sophisticated escape. Indeed, as George Bernard Shaw wrote in Pygmalion: “What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn’t come every day.”

Scheherazade

The second garden occupied a large, leafy corner in old town – a rarified woodland so shade-dappled and cool, it seemed to be on another planet from Queen Street with its heat and crowds and hustle and bustle. Our tour began in front of a large pink sculpture nestled between two young ginkgo trees. “What do you think it is?” asked the gardener, who was there to guide us around in the owners’ absence.

After several guesses from our group, she replied, “You’re all right, of course. It’s anything you want it to be.” And indeed, that freedom to interpret art and beauty in one’s own eyes (and ears) encouraged me to adopt a musical theme for this garden: the Rimsky-Korsakov opera Scheherazade. More on that later….

In the meantime, this is our first view of the fabulous swimming pool, surrounded by layers of foliage in rich, jewel-box colours. (I saw the owner a few weeks later and he said that he wished we could have seen it when all these trees were in spring blossom mode. I’m sure that would have been heavenly.) And I love the linear pool border with its fountains of ‘Gracillimus’ maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis).

Speaking of jewels, did I mention that I love turquoise? I do, especially used cleverly to echo the turquoise water of the pool.

And this! How cool (literally and figuratively) to have a shallow part of the pool in which to dabble your toes, without committing fully to a swim. The perfect place for Scheherazade to spin a tale like Sinbad the Sailor, while dabbling her dainty toes…

Or perhaps she could find a seat in a cool, shady glade like this.

The garden is filled with textural foliage, and in the damp spots there are yellow flag irises (I. pseudacorus).

Now climb the stone stairs…..

….and turn towards the covered terrace with its pillars and shimmering drapes…..

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….and the infinity-fountain spilling neatly down the house wall into the garden, and perhaps you begin to see why I’m thinking of Scheherazade?

Because if this isn’t the perfect stage setting for a vizier’s daughter to think up a thousand and one tales to engage the king (and save her life) through all those Arabian nights…

….while reclining on velvet plum pillows atop a divan in candlelight, I can’t imagine what is.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Our final Niagara-on-the-Lake garden requires an imagined stage shift a few hundred miles away to the little town of Stratford and its eponymous summer festival featuring the plays of William Shakespeare. To find out why, let’s just head into this first enclosed garden, with its appropriate stage name mounted on the entrance gate.

Yes, it is definitely a green room. Cool, verdant and an enclosed sanctuary to calm the fevered summer brow.

Judging from all the rustic outdoor lamps set artfully beside benches and chairs throughout this waterfront property, the gardeners seem to enjoy it by dark. Thus, my Shakespearean theme: a bucolic setting for a midsummer night’s dream – and maybe a pretty splashy garden party, too.

Now, step through the unique vine-and-animal gate and the curtain goes up on a spectacular view of the infinity pool dropping away to the mouth of the Niagara River flowing into Lake Ontario.

There’s something very theatrical about this little seat pour-deux.

Walk around the swimming pool (more on that in a minute) and you get the final, jaw-dropping vista: Old Fort Niagara in New York State across the river. Built by the French on the site of a 1726 trading post at a time when they controlled the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley, the fort was expanded to its current size in 1755 but fell to the British in 1759 in the Battle of Fort Niagara during the French & Indian War. The fort remained in British hands until after the American War of Independence, when it was occupied by American forces. During the War of 1812, British forces seized the fort, but relinquished it to the United States after the 1814 Treaty of Ghent.

Back to the swimming pool. Is this not the most beautiful setting for a midsummer night’s dip….?

….followed by a nightcap next to the outdoor fireplace, of course. For me, this concept of rustic outdoor parlor elevates the pool – which can often be difficult to work gracefully into a landscape – into a lovely setting with a surprisingly cozy ambiance.

The garden beds are not overly ornate, but could easily substitute in a pinch for the setting in Act 2, Scene 1 of the Bard’s play, where Oberon says to Puck “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine…”

Let’s just sit down here in this mossy chair and wait for the sun to set. Then we’ll turn on the lamp and watch the lights of the Toronto skyline twinkle far away across the lake. We may even nod off here – to sleep, perchance, to dream.

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

Tag Archives: garden design

Ornamental Grasses in Winter

A November Wine Tasting

Orange: Three Fruits & a Fish – Part One

Beguilingly Brown in the Garden

A Niagara Garden Tour (in Three Acts)

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