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]]> http://visitsimplygardens.com/2010/07/for-the-gardener/feed/ 3 http://visitsimplygardens.com/2010/07/planting-a-cool-garden/ http://visitsimplygardens.com/2010/07/planting-a-cool-garden/#comments Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:35:58 +0000 Anne Brewer http://visitsimplygardens.com/?p=904 In the most recent Simply Gardens newsletter, Coffee On the Patio, I wrote about ways to stay cool in the garden. I want to expound on one of the ideas-planting from the cooler palette of colors. Except for my butterfly garden I keep the color scheme in my yard to blue, green, and white. I use blue and white hydrangeas and agapanthus extensively in my yard along with white caladiums. Melding the two colors against the serenity of the green foliage truly presents a cooler atmosphere. Try adding water to the landscape and the temperature in your yard will drop 15 degrees! Enjoy the photos from my garden and watch the Southern Living video Create a Cool Garden for more ideas using these colors in the garden.

Hydrangeas by the bird bath

Caladiums 'Candidum"

ferns

Hydrangeas

Agapanthus

Not long after our conversation I was working with a client on a courtyard plan, when one day I went  to the site and there was a turquoise garden stool. How coincidental, and of course, I now had to have one! Here’s a picture of mine and how I use it- more as a piece in a grouping of plants than as a side table. If I’m in need for a drink table I can easily use it in a functional sense, or as it was intended centuries ago- as a garden seat. The picture below the grouping shows how the stool can be used as a side table. I would so love that whole scene, wouldn’t you?

Find garden stools anywhere from Target to Frontgate- check them out and let me know if you’ve found the garden stool as irresistible as I did!

getting ready for Cover's party

I promised myself I would blog regularly and I was doing fairly well with the commitment until spring arrived. Between landscape design projects, patio fluffings, my beautiful niece’s wedding, and a fabulous trip to Israel, I vanished from cyber/blog space. But, I’m back!!! I’m including a few photographs to show you what’s been going on with Simply Gardens and my life. Hope you all have been happily planting and sprucing things up to enjoy the rest of the growing season.

After the artic blast that left everyone hibernating, spring arrived in a rush. But, alas, the spring flowers were slow to arrive in the markets and Cover’s wedding date kept creeping closer. I helped host a party with the bride’s parents for the out of town guests at my house. It would be a garden party so the yard and garden had to be in great shape. The winter had given the landscape a severe beating and there was a lot of replanting that had to be done. On top of that I needed to get my 150 caladium bulbs in the ground because after the wedding I left for a two and a half week trip to Israel.

My childhood friend, Lisa Lipsey, came to Pensacola to run a half marathon. God works in mysterious ways as I haven’t seen Lisa in several years and she just happens to be a landscape architect in Blacksburg, Va. I sooo needed an extra set of hands and a “fresh’ eye for looking at my landscape. I’m sure Lisa expected to spend some relaxing time at the beach, but she hid any disappointment and eagerly helped me install plants and do the mundane spring chores. Lisa successfully completed the half marathon and I was there to help her celebrate. Here are a couple of pictures for proof!

I've got my work cut out for me!

Thank goodness for friends!!!!

Lisa after the half marathon

Celebrating with Lisa

It’s grand to watch the flock swoop in and out of the holly branches scarfing up every last berry. They stay a little more than a week stripping the branches just in time for the emerging birth of new blossoms to start the cycle all over again.

The Great Banquet

cedar waxwing feasting on red berries

St. Mary's in Sewanee, Tn. -April 6, 2008

Despite the fact my garden looks like a bomb exploded in it, signs of spring are emerging. Look around- the saucer magnolia, red bud, and Chickasaw plum trees are blooming. My daffodils are about to pop open in Pensacola, while up in the Alabama country the snow drops are in full bloom and the daffodils are in tight bud form. God is always pointing the way to new life and resurrection- just look around. How are you finding renewal this year?

“Daffodils” (1804)

I WANDER’D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

The Daffodil Field in Boligee, Al.

A view from below the snow drop- Boligee, Al.

field of snow drops in Alabama

Here are a few pictures of some new cultivars I saw at the expo that I’d like to try in my garden. How about you?

Harbor Belle Nandina

This dwarf nandina is going to be a big hit with its beautiful green and wine hued foliage, and vivid vermilion berries. Keeping a compact form Harbor Belle is maintenance free. Use as specimen or in mass, you cannot go wrong with the new Nandina domestica ‘Jaytee’. Developed by Ralph Rushing from Rushing Nursery in Semmes, Al., and named for his daughter.

I’m enamored with the Callistemon viminilis ‘Little John’, a dwarf bottle brush shrub. I’ve seen it planted in mass, and it is spectacular when blooming. It is drought tolerant and attracts hummingbirds. Plant in full sun for a big splash of bright red color this summer.

Little John dwarf bottlebrush

Looking for a shade loving, low growing shrub? Check out the spreading yew, Cephalotaxus harringtonii ‘Prostrata’ -

dwarf spreading yew

Crytomeria 'Black Dragon'

A couple of cryptomerias have my attention, too: Cryptomeria japonica ‘Black Dragon’ and ‘Globosa Nana’. Their texture and form are so interesting. The ‘Black Dragon’  grows to be about twenty feet tall while the ‘Globosa Nana’ is a dwarf with a mounding form that can grow to four to six feet.

Cryptomeria 'Globosa Nana'

Be on the look out for these plants and more at your local garden store.

Ice Flowers and Ribbons

My brother-in-law knows what a hibernating bear I become in the winter at our cabin in western Alabama. Even when it’s sunny, if the temperature is less than 50 degrees, I tend to stick by the fireside. I thought he was using extreme imaginative measures enticing me outdoors with claims of seeing “ice flowers”. I had never heard of them before, and it took some coaxing on his part to convince me to check out his assertions. I bundled up with my jacket, hat, and gloves before venturing out for a walk down the dirt road to see this phenomenon, called “ice flowers”. But here they are- check out the photos.

When I got home I did a google search, and found several articles about them. Some people call them ice flowers, others call them ice ribbons- I guess it depends on the formation. The first picture posted looks like an ice flower, but here’s one that looks more like a ribbon tied in a bow. See the second photo. You might call this one  an ice angel because it looks like it has wings.

D. Bruce Means wrote in February 2004 in “Natural History” about his findings :

“On close inspection, I saw that the “petals” of my ice flowers push their way through the vascular bundles of the dead stems: Water from the roots is drawn up the stems (either as part of the plant’s natural transportation system or through capillary action) and expands as it freezes, breaking the stem walls and creating a flow of ice. The leading edge of the ice freezes to the stem’s papery bark, and as the ice grows it is lifted upward by the attached bark, forming delicately curved, lacy ribbons…
Ice flowers “grown” by the same plants during later freezes in the same winter take on entirely different shapes, often becoming more compact, like true flowers. The bark of the woody stems has already been peeled upward by the first freeze, and so it is no longer available to shape the growth of new ice flowers.”

So there you have it! Winter does have something to offer besides a chance to roast chestnuts on an open fire. Button up your over coat and go ice flower hunting! It’s a joy to come upon these flowers because they only “bloom” in certain weather and temperature conditions. You may be privileged to see them one year, and then go several years with no sightings.

Let me hear about your ice flower sitings.