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A Perfect Moment

Janet has called twice in the past two days to invite me to come around for a look.  As she doesn’t invite unless there is something splendid to see, I stopped on my way home from work-around 6pm.  The skies had finally clouded over and looked stormy. Her courtyard-redolent with the fragrance of roses.  Thousands of roses.  Anyone who loves roses believes, works, and hopes for a moment like this.   

I spent perhaps a half hour there.  The first view as I drove in shocked me- it was so stunning. A mild winter, an unusually mild and rainy spring had given way to a relentless spell of hot weather.  Her early summer garden burst forth with a spectacular show of hands.  My second trip around the garden, I took the time to see everything.  The Canadian Explorer rose John Davis-perfection. Who knows how many years ago I planted this pair of roses.

There was plenty to see.  The white clematis Montana rambling over the wall and into the roses-splendid. The peonies, mostly singles and Japanese types, are in all stages of bud and bloom.

Every plant looked perfectly happy, and beautifully tended.  Janet puts an incredible amount of time,thought and work to her garden-that was evident everywhere I looked.   

This kousa dogwood has been in her garden as long as I have known her-25 years.  I have never seen it bloom like this.  I am especially fond of Kousas, as they comes into bloom slowly enough to give you time to enjoy all of its stages.   

Roses and clematis are a heavenly combination. I spent a half hour in heaven at the end of a grueling day-thanks a million, Janet. I did spend some of that time thinking about all the work that has gone on in this garden over the years-at one point (when I was young) every square inch of this garden was double dug and loaded with all manner of compost.

The explorer rose John Cabot was representing just as beautifully as John Davis.  These roses are tough and hardy in my zone.  They are also amazingly long lived.  I have planted a number of them over the years; those that were planted in front yard gardens I see they are still going strong. When I managed the perennial department for Al Goldner, he indulged my passion for roses.  In addition to the tea roses he was so fond of, we carried many varieties of shrub roses and rose species.  I have a memory of being pulled over at the US-Canadian border; I had been to Hortico, and had five hundred bareroot roses on my truck-and no phytosanitary certificate.  I never tried that again.   

This June flush is the best and the brightest we will have in a season.  That alone makes a strong and splendid display all the more precious. Of course I went home wanting to grow more roses.  The few I have are beautiful in their own right at the moment, and I am greatly enjoying them. 


These queen bees of the garden are worth the trouble, as when they are good, they are very very good.  They have a beauty and charm missing from the newer varieties of “landscape roses”-I cannot exactly explain why.  The knockout series of roses have their place-they are tough and disease resistant.  They lack a little of the romance I associate with roses.  I will plant them in places where no other rose will do-but what I saw here was everything I would ever want in a rose, and some years do not get.


Thanks for this, Janet.

Posted on: June 1, 2010 6 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Design

Pots And Boxes

Pots and boxes-this client has plenty.  Sixteen window boxes on three sides, of the house, and close to thirty pots. It is the better part of the day start to finish to get then dressed for the summer.  The shopping and transport is time that doesn’t show here.  This plant comes from that place, and that plant from somewhere else miles from stop number one.  There is the loading, the driving and the unloading.  But the big story of this entire week’s planting-the heat.  I call 90 degrees since May 21st extremely unseasonably hot weather. Making sure the plants survive in spite of their very small rootballs, a time consuming challenge.    

This gorgeous pair of Mital terra cotta pots handmade in Impruneta Italy on attending plinths are giant sized.  Placed outside a small side terrace, they add a lot of punch to a large drivecourt near the rear of the house.  The banana in the center will grow to a substantial size.  Fisdh and bananas have this in common-they will grow according to the size of their environment-whether that be water, or soil.  If the heat we are having persists, this pot will grow fast.

The side terrace is home to a collection of glazed French terra cotta pots.  Sonic New Guinea impatiens will thrive in this spot; the light is strong for 6 hours a day.  Flanking the couch, a pair of lime irisine grown in tree form.  Sporting green and lime leaves atop red voilet stems, they have a distinctly tropical feeling.  They will have to be pruned regularly, as they grow like weeds. 

This is one of the most beautiful pools I have ever seen; the pergolas are stunning as well.  None of this was designed by me-I just plant the pots.  My client was the force behind the Italian pots-he likes them.  The DeGroot spire arborvitae spend the summer in the pots, and the winters in ground.  They are a reasonable approximation in shape to Italian cypress. If I could petition nature to let just one plant run around the hardiness zone rule, it would be the cypress.  As sculptural as they are stately, they bring Italy, and Italian gardens to mind. 

The color scheme this year-yellow, lavender, purple, white-and cool green.  The pots have lots of variegated licorice.  This green of course is a nod to the starring figures-those 6 Degroot Spires.  Most of the color is not so evident yet-the plants have a lot of growing to do.  Yellow and Vanilla Butterflies argyranthemum are lively, mixed. Popping up between them, yellow and white dahlias gallerys series dahlias. 

Pool decks tend to be very hot places; white in the composition keeps everything looking cool and fresh.  The trailing verbenas have shed their penchant for mildew; the Lanai series is particularly healthy growing.  If they are kept deadheaded, they bloom nonstop long into the fall.  This very dark purple reads well in the company of white petunias. 

This picture in no way reveals that it was cooking hot on that terrace-you will have to take my word for it. The window boxes were especially challenging in that heat. All of the plant material had to be hauled up our extention ladder. This kind of planting is not for the faint of heart.  

It is finally warm enough to bring the heliotrope out of the greenhouse.  This new lavender variety is especially attractive. I am sure you can tell that I like it-I used lots. 

An old iron trough is planted with black leaved orange cannas, and black leaved Fascination dahlias. Wild Lime coleus, Tricolor and Caliente orange geraniums add an unexpected dose of hot color. These big individual cabanas could use it.  

There is much that is yet to come for this terrace.  I can see the pots grown in, and people in the space.  Lovely.

Posted on: May 27, 2010 6 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Design, Garden Ornament Tagged With:

Black And White

Running crews is the perfect thing for my three month old titanium knee whatever apparatus.  As much as I am inclined to baby that thing, working demands that it be put to use-confidently.  This is not to say that the men on my crews do not cut me some slack-they do.  They get the plants to me; they make sure I get up and down, as needed.  But that knee is getting the workout it needs. This was a black and white day.  My morning installation-so many variations on black, chocolate, red and orange in the plants.  Seeing my palette of bananas, black oxalis, red irisine, lime selaginella and so on, my client asked if I were going traditonal on him.  Very very funny, this from him.  His planting-distinctly alternative.  Very much about spare, serene and modern design.  Much about visual challenges that hopefully represent his notions gardening.      

This quietly gorgeous Francesca del Re tapered pot got a green and black calocasia front and center.  The black red spikes-an unexpectedly tall underplanting. Lime selaginella energizes the entire discussion going on between that large leaved and curving voice, and the spiky and dark second fiddles-good music. 

The centerpiece of these pots-bananas.  Banana plants-they grow  proportional to the pots/soil mass they are planted in.  In ground, 14 feet. In these pots-6-8 feet.  Green and brown leaved, with red violet midribs-a concert with a great opening, and and a dramatic finish.  All of the other plants in this pot will be in celebration of the bananas.  

Lime and black is a dramatic combination.  That said, be sure to back up the black with a lime element that will showcase the subtleties of the black foliage. Consider the eventual size of each plant-growing up and growing out will tell everything about your understanding of maturity.   This lime dracaena will grown faster, and outdistance these black red spikes.  The green/black/red stemmed pepperomias are a transitional element.  The lime creeping jenny to trail- exquisitely lime. Contrasting colors is not enough.  Mass, texture, rhythm-consider these elements as well. 

My box trucks-I haul soil, bark, tools, stakes-whatever.  All over.  My shop is located in an industrial park far off the beaten path.  This makes us a secret of sorts, and we certainly are all about being dirty.  Whenever I see this truck, it makes me laugh.  We like dirty-that dirty work makes a good garden possible.  

The box truck is home to all the tools of the trade-and then some.  The translucent roof makes it possible for me to see what is up there. The American companies that made this truck available to me-many thanks.  This roof-a dream come true for any designer looking at color.  Or for any crew person looking for a roll of bark wire.

My afternoon was all about a client who loves white.  She has no use for anything that even remotely resembles black, although her taste runs to clean lined and modern too. I am happy to oblige. When planngs are done in a single color, the visual emphasis changes.  Form, mass, texture and line become the important issue.   A black morning and a white afternoon made for an exciting day. 

White dahlias, white trailing verbena, white annual phlox and variegated licorice-a very strong statement in white and green.  But not nearly as strong a statement as this steel break formed pot.  48 inches in diameter, there is room to plant plenty.  It would  be equally happy to be planted with loads of a single plant.  I am reluctant to plant one variety only-one never knows what the summer weather will be.  I  would rather replace a few things, than the entire planting. 


No matter the black or the white, the design issues are all the same. This airy euphorbia gets plenty of emphasis from the contrasting green and white large leaved plectranthus.  The relationship of these two plants enchants me.  The best part of my job is being party to lots of gardens, with very different points of view.  I have all kinds of music going on; I could not want for much more.

Posted on: May 24, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Design, Garden Ornament Tagged With: ,

Loathe To Let Go

May weather in Michigan is likely to be too cold, or too hot.  As in, one extreme or the other, irregularly and unpredictably.  Yesterday saw the temperature reach 80 degrees, for Pete’s sake.  This untoward weather was attended by lots of phone calls from clients worrying that the summer was about to pass them by-could I plant their flowers right away?  We do try to get everyone planted as quickly as possible-most people understand this, and are good natured about it. I tell clients the best thing I do for them is to isolate all the world noise, and concentrate on their place.  I schedule plantings in an order suggested by the cold tolerance of the plants that need to be planted.  I have some clients for whom I have been planting for 25 years-these clients are first up.  Those clients aside, I change up plantings dates.  If you were so kind as to be planted the second week of June last year, you get an earlier date this year.  I grew up in and love a democracy-enough said.    My crews are great.  They unload the trucks, fill the pots, prep, plant topiaries and centerpieces-they do this rather than talk to me.  They wait until we are done, to talk to me.  I am crazy about them for this; they know how to set up and get ready-and leave me be to sort everything out.  I myself like to plant late, in thoroughly warm soil.  I am loathe to let go of the spring.  My tulips at the shop have been so beautiful-for at least a month.  But they are fading fast in the heat.   

The spring pots are just beginning to hit their stride.  Improvements in pansy and viola breeding has produced plants with great heat tolerance, and vigorous blooming.  I am personally still stuck on the violas, and not yet focused on the summer season.  I like the seasons-each one, in turn.  The rhododendrons outside my office at home are breathtaking right now-pale pink blooms with a flush of yellow at the throat. Those impossibly long stamens-what an elegant flower graces the rhododendron.  They speak to spring.   I am listening.

We planted up a number of galvanized troughs such as this one.  Spring plants have distinctive color and shapes that are all their own.  The kale will eventually bolt and go to seed when the hot weather arrives and stays.  Peach melba heuchera and Citron alyssum make a fine spring pair.  Lavender violas blushing peach-I know of no other flower that has coloration like this.  For the moment, the spring season maturing has my attention.

Spring white, lavender and purple-I am not ready to trade this in for a more summery look. I tour the pots and plantings at the shop every day, first thing.  I tour my own garden, last thing, every day.  It is not enough to see something briefly in a garden.  I like every bit of it to settle around my bones, and take hold.  Repeat trips in conjunction with my stubborn point of view; an unexpected change -this best describes my gardening life. 

The lettuce pots are beautiful right now. I know this will sound hopelessly archaic, but I eat iceberg lettuce and tuna every day at lunch.  Any lettuce, any mesclun roadside weed lettuce mix-a treat. The water that endows all the lettuces-I especially enjoy that which is crunchy and juicy.  Spring-eminently juicy.  Spring flowering plants are a treat to all of us who are winter weary.  Thus lettuce figures prominently in my spring container design work. Juicy and fresh-lettuce is just about the best thing spring has to offer.  

I like telling time by what is in bloom.  I have no need for an armillary, or a watch.  I have grown and tended many perennials-what I like about them the best is how they represent the season.  In spring- the hellebores, phlox divaricata, epimediums, European ginger, Solomon’s Seal-the simple violets.  Harbingers of the spring season. 

I apologize-the light at 7am is dim, and I thought I could skip hauling the tripod outside.  Though this photograph is not the sharpest, the idea is clear.  These tall thin long tom clay pots are home to burgeoning spring violas-delightful.  Spring like.

Spring in Michigan is short and sweet.  Very sweet.  The tulips-what could be better?  This tulip mix-so celebratory of spring.  Though I am racing miles ahead of the late spring season to design for summer, I so treasure our spring season.   


This pot-a strong arrangement of purple faced pansies, white violas and scotch moss in a very beautiful low bowl-this kind of spring statement sustains me.

Posted on: May 21, 2010 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Spring, Garden Design Tagged With: , , ,