Tag Archives: garden

An Illinois Flower Garden

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One of the joys of participating in the annual symposium of the Garden Writers Association (GWA) is the opportunity to tour local gardens. It’s especially fun to visit private gardens where the owner is clearly a long-time, passionate gardener – and the garden is big enough to accommodate a few busloads of visitors at a time. That was the case in August when we visited Susan Beard’s wonderful 3-1/2 acre garden in Oak Brook, Illinois, in Chicago’s western suburbs. Though the Beards have lived on the property for 37 years, the frame house is one they built in 1996.  And the welcome couldn’t have been more flowery!

Flanking the driveway was a sea of blackeyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta) – the old-fashioned biennials, not the fancy perennials.

The entrance to the back garden at the end of the driveway was announced by a bench, birdhouse and picket fence…..

…. and a planting of ‘Queen Lime’ and pink zinnias and butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii).

I loved this chartreuse and magenta combination!  And this was just the first of scores of birdhouses in Susan’s garden.

Inside the fence, the garden dips steeply to one side via flagstone steps.  On the stairs, ‘Margarita’ sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas) was deployed as a brilliant edging.

Down below I could see a lime-green Tiger Eye sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) and a bridge over a damp part of the garden.

Here’s a closer look at the bridge.

There is dampness here…..

….. and Susan takes advantage of the moist soil with swamp hibiscus (H. moscheutos) doing its beautiful, late summer thing in shades of white….

….. and cranberry-red.

Back up near the house, zinnias are such cheerful flowers and Susan used them throughout the garden, including here as an edging.

The honey bees approved!

Around the corner flanking the house was another visually stunning edging of Japanese hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) – another one of Susan’s mainstays.  And I liked the way the flagstone pavers are set flush into the soft lawn, rather than forming just another hard surface.

Ahead was Susan’s swimming pool, set on an interesting angle and framed by a stone sitting wall and a split-rail fence with the main garden behind.  Long ago, the pool was bright blue, but she had it painted it black so it wouldn’t be an eyesore.

There’s a good patch of lawn here, but the main show is from flowers grown in a lovely, informal, cottage garden style.

The view looking into the back garden was an August tapestry of hydrangeas, summer phlox and blackeyed susans……

……… with the occasional obelisk bearing purple clematis.

This was the swimming pool view towards the house.

Susan Beard was standing near her kitchen to answer our questions. As well as being a former president of garden clubs and active with Chicago’s Morton Arboretum, she has made the garden available to charities, tours and artist groups for many years.

We were welcomed into her kitchen with homemadc cakes and cookies!

But there was still much to see and I returned to the garden. I passed another birdhouse and more waterfall-like hakonechloa.  Although flowers create colour throughout the growing season, Susan has included lots of conifers in the borders for bird habitat and visual interest and structure throughout Chicago’s long winter.

A birdbath sits amidst blackeyed susans.

Then it was into the woods: a mature forest containing oak, shagbark hickory, ash and hawthorn……

….. and some lovely pieces of metal sculpture.

Susan has cleared away some of the understory here to create a beautiful shade garden.

There are lots of native ferns and buckeyes…..

…… and piles of firewood left in place (which attract fireflies).

Another lovely fish sculpture graces the forest garden.

When Susan’s six grandchildren were young, they played hide-and-seek on the paths through the forest and gardens.  And I’ll bet they loved this garden house.

With so much shade here, hostas are used extensively (300 varieties!), along with native plants like Solomon’s seal.

The compost heaps and nursery plant area even have their own gated section!

New plantings here are carefully mulched…..

…. with the abundant leaves shed each year.

Though the woodland is predominantly green, garden art supplies a little brilliant colour.

According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, the forest garden owes much to Susan’s late father, a retired U.S. Air Force general from Santa Barbara who needed a project when he visited long ago, so used a chainsaw to begin the process of clearing the edges of the woodland. And it was from her father’s garden that Susan brought back the naked ladies or surprise lilies (Lycoris squamigera) that were just moving past their prime in the photo below.

Soon we were out of the forest and back into the garden via another stone path edged with invaluable hakone grass…..

….. and found our way to the comfy teak tables beside the pool where we relaxed until the call to load up the buses that would take us to the next stop on our tour of Chicago’s beautiful western suburbs.

A September Visit to Bellevue Botanical Garden

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On our brief stop in Seattle in September, we paid a visit to Bellevue Botanical Garden. I had been to the garden years earlier and it was still enchanting — if only the weather had cooperated (she says, with a wink). For unlike most people who revel in a warm late summer day without a cloud on the horizon, photographers tend to gaze skyward hopefully for the chance of overcast – even a light sprinkle – because midday sunshine creates difficult, contrasty light in a garden. Nevertheless, that’s what we had and I was resigned walking in that I would be focusing on shadier spots in the garden.

This is a map of the garden, which I modified to show both the small keys and actual sections in one image. From their website a bit of history:  “The Bellevue Botanical Garden Society (BBGS) was founded in 1984, by Iris and Bob Jewett, with the idea to build and support a free public botanical garden for their local community. It came to fruition when Harriet and Cal Shorts generously donated their home and 7.5 acres to develop the Bellevue Botanical Garden (BBG). The Society was then incorporated in January 1986, as a non-profit organization. Beginning in 1992, and in partnership with the City of Bellevue, more than 45 acres has since been added to the Garden. Today, the 53-acre Bellevue Botanical Garden is a world-renowned community treasure for everyone to enjoy”.  

The entrance walkway features a unique in-ground rock fountain which feeds a rill that flows along the pathway.

Beyond is an interesting slatted wall fountain.

If you have a cellphone, you can use the Tap or Scan app for the garden.

The Fuchsia Garden has been maintained by Seattle’s Eastside Fuchsia Society since 1992. I could have spent a long time here shooting macros, but we had a big driving day ahead, so I satisfied myself with….

…. just one or two close-ups. This lovely blossom is ‘Delta’s Sarah’.

Then we were approaching the famous NPA (Northwest Perennial Alliance).Perennial Border, which is actually a series of parallel borders arrayed on a slope.  Though this is an older article, I appreciated reading about the history of the border. 

There are attractive benches throughout the garden…..

….. and interesting stacked stone sculptures (these ones in goldenrod about to flower.)

I wish I could show you the border as it should be seen, but in the harsh light I took very few photos.  There was an ebullient display of Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), Verbena bonariensis and blue mist bush (Caryopteris x clandonensis).

And out of the sun, I liked the way V. bonariensis insinuated itself into this heavenly bamboo (Nandina domestica).

Verbena bonariensis always attracts bumble bees, and since I do a lot of photography of bumble bees and all kinds of other native bees and honey bees, I stopped for a moment to watch a yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) nectaring on the tiny flowers.

Gaura (Oenothera gaura) was a cloud of tiny flowers.

The purplish-blue spikes of anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) made a pretty pairing with the gaura.

Rudbeckia subtomentosa ‘Henry Eilers’ is one of the late season charmers among the myriad yellow daisies.

I loved the way false hemp (Datisca cannabina) created a living arch on a path behind towering pink Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum ‘Gateway’).

Ornamental grasses are featured abundantly in the perennial border.

Bulbs are also used in the perennial border, like this tropical ginger lily (Hedychium coccineum ‘Tara’).

And the border features shrubs and small trees like crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia) ….

…. and hydrangeas, which were undergoing their beautiful late summer colour transformation.

Red-orange heleniums (H. autumnale) were attracting pollinators in one section of the border.



In a shady section, below, I was charmed by this small vignette of hydrangea, brunnera and geranium……

…. and the azure-blue flowers of Gentiana asclepiadea cascaded over stairs between the parallel paths.

The cultivar name of this pure white toad lily (Tricyrtis hirta) is ‘Shirohohotogisu’, which means ‘white cuckoo’, a descriptive metaphor for the upswept petals.

On higher ground beside the lawn near the garden’s gift shop, I stood in the shade of the silk tree (Albizia julibrissin) and looked back at the borders below.

The silk tree was in full flower.

At the far end of the border, the Dahlia Display Garden maintained by the Puget Sound Dahlia Association was at its late summer best.

Who doesn’t love the brilliant colours of dahlias?

The bright sun on this dahlia suited the leafcutter bee just fine. (Bees love single-petalled dahlias!)

Even this southern green stink bug nymph looked fetching on an orange dahlia.

Since our schedule had us driving to the beaches of Oregon that day, we hurried out of the NPA Perennial Border area on a path through the forest. Here you’ll find the Native Discovery Garden. From the website: “The Native Discovery Garden, maintained by the East Lake Washington District of Garden Clubs and the Washington Native Plant Society, inspires visitors to look to the native plant palette when planning their home gardens. Adapted to the climate and conditions of the Pacific Northwest, native plants in urban landscapes can be ecologically sound, beautiful, and low maintenance. Adjacent to a natural wetland, this garden illustrates the many layers of plant life in the Northwest, from ground covers to trees. It serves as a transition from the gardens to the woodlands and forested lands to the south.” 

 

I stopped at a beautiful bench, sculpted from Washington state hexagonal columnar basalt by sculptor Barry Namm.

There were excited children watching the fish beneath the waterfall in the Shorts Groundcover Garden.

Water is used throughout Bellevue Botanical Garden, in inventive ways both natural and highly artificial.

I captured some of those water features in this short video.

To honor its ‘sister city’ relationship with Yao City near Osaka, Bellevue originally established the Yao Japanese Garden at Kelsey Creek Park.  In 1992, the garden was moved to the Bellevue Botanical Garden, where it opened two years later. This is the entrance gate.

Unlike many traditional Japanese gardens, there are lushly beautiful plantings here.

I loved this timber bridge.

But there are also the more traditional features of a Japanese garden.

We stopped briefly at the Tateuchi Viewing Pavilion, nestled under massive red cedars (Thuja plicata).  It was a gift from the Tateuchi Foundation, i.e. Atsuhiko Tateuchi and his wife, Ina Goodwin Tateuchi.

Then it was time to take the Tateuchi Loop Path to return to our car and drive south towards Oregon.

Orange Punch!

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I’ve never understood the antipathy to orange in the garden that so many people seem to have. For me, orange is fun to pair with other hues, whether in a warm blend of citrus & sunset colours, like my deck pot at the lake one summer, below, with its nasturtiums, African daisies, zinnias and pelargoniums ….

….. or in classic combinations like orange and blue (complementary contrasts on the colour wheel), or orange and purple, as illustrated in a few combinations below. (Click for larger photo.)

I came upon a few great examples on my day at the Chicago Botanic Garden last week, One lovely planting on Evening Island paired Mexican daisy (Tithonia rotundifolia ‘Fiesta del Sol’) with blue bog sage (Salvia uliginosa).  I loved this duo!

These two are also wonderful pollinator plants, the tithonia attracting lots of butterflies, including monarchs….

….. and swallowtails, like the black swallowtail below.

And the bog sage is a fabulous lure for bees. While I stood there for a few minutes, I saw lots of honey bees and native bumble bees and carpenter bees, like the big one below.

Orange can even be a feature in wetlands or pond margins, as we see below on the shore of the Great Basin, with Canna ‘Intrigue’ and its ruby-throated hummingbird visitor.

Another CBG combo I liked was in the Circle Garden, with old-fashioned orange zinnias (Z. elegans) consorting with a lovely pale orange-yellow coleus splashed with red.  I couldn’t see a label, but it might be ‘Copper Splash’.

A few years back, I did an in-depth blog post exploring orange flowers, foliage and accessories for the garden. If you didn’t catch it, you can find it here.  Orange! What’s not to love?

La Casita Moradita de Tequila

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There’s no question that the most unusual garden I’ve ever visited – and not just on my Austin tour this May– is the one belonging to the inimitable Lucinda Hutson.

Yes, that Lucinda Hutson. The Austinite who might be the world’s leading authority on tequila, pulque, mescal, margaritas – and of course VIVA!  Because Lucinda is certainly an expert on what Mexicans would call alegría de vivir or what the French could call joie de vivre. Meaning, of course, that life is a party and it’s meant to be lived joyously and in full colour. Preferably with tequila, the subject of her latest book, Viva Tequila, a truly fabulous read on one of the world’s favourite licores. 

The video below in Lucinda’s own voice gives an idea of the breadth of the book.

So let’s take our own tour of Lucinda’s wonderful garden and casita moradita (“little purple house”), where she has lived and gardened for 41 years.  Imagine a passionate-purple house from the 1940s with a funky cottage garden out front and a Mexican cantina out back.  Well, actually, you don’t have to imagine: here it is.  Taken together, her ‘Texicana’ house and garden pay homage not just to the colour purple, but to sandia (watermelon), papaya, mango and the brilliant colours of the Mexican barrio, yellow and turquoise.  And notice the hues that Lucinda is wearing match that arch perfectly! That’s colores style.

Her front garden palette, unsurprisingly, features lots of purples (Salvia guaranitica ‘Amistad’), as well as blues and pinks.

And the ‘Amistad’ sage, unsurprisingly, always features bees (and hummingbirds).

There are lots more heat-loving sages in the front garden. Here one is paired with the unusual blooms of bat-face cuphea (Cuphea llavea).

There are all kinds of chairs and benches in Lucinda’s gardens where you can sit and enjoy the view — and in this case, the delicious perfume of Confederate jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminioides).   Love this colour combination.

And this on the shawl below.

Every detail is thought out, including the broken Mexican crockery beneath the pelargonium.

The fish tile leads us down the side of the house into Lucinda’s Mermaid Grotto.

What a lovely spot for sitting and listening to the trickle of water in the pond.

There are lots of sirenas here, amidst seashells and mother-of-pearl! The succulents are arranged to look like plants at the bottom of the sea.

And, of course, fishy chairs in turquoise-and-orange……

…and seashore-themed coffee tables.

Just another mermaid, but this one fashioned from Haitian oil drums.

As we toured, Lucinda’s cat Sancho did his morning grooming under bougainvillea.

What lovely colour sense she has, created sometimes with small gestures that catch the eye.

“Our Lady of La Tina” (the bathtub goddess) has the job of protecting the garden.

Near the back of the house is the raised vegetable-herb garden. Lucinda grew up in El Paso, Texas in the desert, surrounded by cacti and gravel. She developed her love of herbs and old-fashioned, bright flowers during her travels in Mexico. Look at how simple…..

…..flowers like zinnias and marigolds — both Mexican natives — create a fiesta-like atmosphere.  Lucinda freely admits that her gardens are anything but low-maintenance. “This is a water-intensive garden that requires hours with the hoses in the summer, despite my drip system — so many pots and nooks and crannies.”  She credits the help of her “wonderful, like-minded gardener from Mexico who shares his culture and ideas with me, and we have so much fun!”

She learned how to cook with Mexican flair, using herbs fresh from her garden.  Those culinary delights were featured in her Herb Garden Cookbook, which was published in 1992. Her articles have also appeared in Food and Wine, Food Arts, Fine Gardening, Horticulture, The Herb Companion, Kitchen Garden, Organic Gardening and Southern Living. Isn’t that rustic bench lovely…..

….with its cushions of hermosas flores!

Mexican pottery is also displayed throughout the garden.

Swiss chard and baby sun rose (Aptenia cordifolia) in a cobalt-blue pot. What a nice combo!

Lucinda invited us to crush the allspice leaves, one of many tender plants she grows for her cookery. She moves this one into the greenhouse for winter.

Even the trash corner looks festive in her garden, with that purple clapboard and blown glass behind it.

Children’s folk-art chairs are arrayed on the wall, as is the custom in parts of Mexico.

Now we’ve come to fiesta central, the deck that hosts Lucinda’s famous parties and salsa dancing. Behind is her writing studio.

This is the buffet/bar.  Wouldn’t you love to be invited to a party here?

Now we’re in Lucinda’s Tequila Cantina, her homage to all things tequila. The vignette below would be perfect for the annual Dio de los Muertos celebrated by Mexicans (and Austinites) on November 1st.

Her collection of tequila bottles, glasses and accessories is epic.

More turquesa!

I’ve seen a lot of bottle trees in southern and southwest gardens, but none as evocative of lime and salt as this tree, appropriately mulched with corks!

Leading from the garden into the kitchen is the Stairway of Dreams. Come on in! (Lucinda said it’s okay….)

There are sleek, granite-countered kitchens, then there’s Lucinda’s wonderful, funky kitchen. I cannot imagine how many comidas deliciosas began in this colourful place!

Nor how many of her special Mexican martinis were mixed at this cabinet.

What a wonderful dining room for entertaining friends in Austin winters.

And, of course, there’s an agave chandelier overhead.

The Mexican punched-tin lamp sports its own adornments.

And there is folk art galore all around, from a lifetime of collecting in Mexico.

Her living room is cozy (and rosy).

Even the bathroom window is a seaside fantasy.

My last stop on the house tour was the bedroom, where purple walls and gorgeous bed linens create a kind of sueño mexicano.

Then it was time to say adios to our lovely hostess.

But that wasn’t the last time we’d see Lucinda during our fling. She was signing books the next night at our farewell party at the fabulous shop and venue, Articulture. Viva Tequila! is such a good read, part history, part botany, part cookbook, part cocktail primer and all fun — highly recommended.  (When I photographed her below, she had discovered I was Canadian and was regaling me with her love of the singer Ian Tyson. I think she even sang a few bars of one of his songs!)

I adore Mexico and have visited many regions over the past four decades. So here’s a margarita toast (straight from the beach in Manzanillo) to Lucinda Hutson and her exuberant spirit. Salud!

And since we can’t hear the mariachi bands that have surely graced Lucinda’s parties in her El Jardín Encantador, here’s a trio from a favourite restaurant in Cozumel, Casa Mission, singing my very favourite Spanish song.  I dedicate it to her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdNsM24JCak

A Garden for Wildlife in Texas

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When the newspaper cartoonist and trailblazing conservationist Ding (Jay Norwood) Darling (1876-1962) established the National Wildlife Federation in 1936, he had conservation as his goal.  “Land, water and vegetation are just that dependent on one another. Without these three primary elements in natural balance, we can have neither fish nor game, wild flowers nor trees, labor nor capital, nor sustaining habitat for humans.”  Ruthie Burrus’s Austin garden meets those critera, and an NWF sign proclaims her intention for all visitors to see.

But it’s not really necessary to read the words on the sign, for you can discern Ruthie’s intent based on the masses of pollinator-friendly plants flanking the long driveway at its start near the road…..

…. and the painted lady butterfly nectaring on the mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea)…..

…. and the honey bee foraging on the blanket flower (Gaillardia pulchella)…..

…. and the cottage garden-style matrix of self-seeding, mostly native wildflowers and grasses.

For structure, Ruthie has used the “it plant” that we saw in almost every Austin garden, the beautiful whale’s tongue agave (A. ovatifolia).

Not every plant is native – brilliant, bee-friendly corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) have been incorporated, and self-seed regularly.

But the Texas natives do attract their share of pollinators, including this beautiful pipevine swallowtail butterfly nectaring on Hesperaloe parviflora, or red yucca.

There was lovely pink evening primrose (Oenothera  speciosa)….

And Engelmann’s daisy (Engelmannia peristenia)…

And lemon beebalm  (Monarda citriodora…

And rock rose (Pavonia lasiopetala).

The curving driveway’s retaining wall is draped with bee-friendly rosemary.

When we reached the top of the driveway, we were treated to a tamer garden surrounding the Burrus’s lovely limestone home.

Ruthie Burrus was waiting for us there, ready to tour us around.

But even here, the plant palette was chosen to attract pollinators, like the honey bee on Salvia guaranitica ‘Amistad’, below.

In the shade, surrounded by ferns, was a water trough fountain with a slow-trickling stream of water cascading to the plantings below, then recirculated.

This was Texas hill country, and the view st the back of the house over the pool to downtown Austin was spectacular.

I loved the outdoor living room, protected from Texas gullywashers by a roof, and featuring a fireplace for cool evenings.

Beautiful succulent designs filled pots and troughs outdoors.

Many homeowners are including woodburning pizza ovens in their landscapes these days, and Ruthie’s was beautifully landscaped with Phlomis and agaves.

Nearby was a sweet building that Ruthie calls her garden haus.

A large cistern — one of two on the property — gathers rainwater channelled to it via a system of drains. A pump then facilitates irrigation of the garden.

We were just leaving when I heard excited voices at the front of the house. Looking up, I saw a huge tarantula on the cool limestone wall.  At the risk of anthrpomorphizing a little, it seemed to be saying, “I’m a Texas native insect too, and there’s room for all of us here!”