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Planting For Events

We do plenty out of the ordinary garden plantings- given a special event.  Planning outdoor parties, and timely planting for outdoor parties don’t always go hand in hand.  Whenever a client asks for white tulips blooming for a mid-May outdoor wedding reception, I sigh.  Try as I may, I am no better at predicting when the Maureen tulips will be at their white peak than I am at predicting the outcome of a horse race.  Suffice it to say that I planted hundreds of pots of all kinds of spring flowering bulbs hoping some would be in bloom for our spring fair-not a one bloomed for the fair.  I have also stuck cut white tulips in water tubes into tulip foliage in the ground.  This is not cheating-this is going the distance to make an event visually memorable.  I had 3 weddings scheduled this spring- two on June 4 and and one June 19.  Several clients had graduation parties they planned to hold outside in mid June.  The spring did little to help me out; no end of cold and wet weather kept me from planting until I had no choice but to go ahead, and hope for the best.  Everything seemed to work out fine.  Late May and June is not an optimal time for a garden party in my zone, unless there are a lot of bulbs, and spring flowering annuals and perennials in place.  This client was hosting a wedding reception at home.  The Belgian oak boxes asked for a different kind of planting to celebrate that event.    

The fact is that no perennial, bulb, or annual planting will perform spot on and perfectly for an event.  I encourage my clients to use cut flowers to add to what is already going on. The florist’s rose known as Hollywood is the best white rose it has ever been my pleasure to use.  Though I order them up from my cut flower supplier, for all the world, they look and open like garden roses.  I order them to arrive several days in advance of the event, so I have time to condition them.  I recut the stems on a slant, and place them in room temperature water in a cool spot.  This encourages them to take up water;  proper conditioning can make cut flowers last much longer.  My plan was to add cut flowers to the annual planting. 

 I had planted the boxes with top grafted willow topiaries, and white caladiums.  Given a wedding reception, I stuffed stems of the roses, and white montecasino into the soil around the caladiums.  The pots looked dressed to the nines.  Hollywood roses last a long time out of water.  If the air temperature is cool, I stick the stems directly into the soil.  If the weather is hot, I may tube the roses.  Floral supply places carry pointed plastic tubes with perforated rubber caps that permit the stem of a flower to be pushed into an individual “vase”.  A rose can drink this small amount of water in a matter of hours, but often that is long enough.  The pointed end of the tube can be poked into the soil.  Once the reception was over, the roses are removed, and the caladiums grow on into the summer.   

The containers on the balcony were planted with white flowering annuals especially for this event.  A pair of white mandevillea vines were conspicuously green, but mandevillea likes heat to flower.  By June 19, we had had but a few really hot days, and night temperatures in the 50’s. But other plants made a little white statement. 

This box with its own antique scrolled iron panel is very friendly to a mandevillea planting.  The niche is warm, and protected from wind.  The vine will have plenty of places to wind around, and grow.  It will climb to the top of this panel in no time.  The placement was somewhat dictated by a giant downspout right in the middle of the wall.  Whomever designed this detail had utility on their mind-and not much else.  But as this balcony does not get any use in the winter,  the container helps to solve a visual problem. 

White salvia has never been a favorite.  But the new Cambridge series has more substantial and brighter white flowers.  The white Gallery dahlias have large flowers, as do the white supertunias.  Some white flowers I stay away from.  The blooms on white geraniums are so quickly spoiled by rain.  Plant them if you plan to wait on them regularly.


I have always liked white cleome, but this dwarf version called Spirit white is completely at home in a container.  Soon there will be white angelonia, and lanai white trailing verbena.  In another month, it will be the perfect accompaniment for a garden event.  June the 19th, it looked perfectly fresh and lively.


There are lots of great choices in white flowers-everyone has their favorites.  The not so often used white polka dot plant is a great supporting cast plant-it is best in shade.   It looks great with white caladiums. If you want to use it in full sun, as it is planted here with white dahlias, be sure it gets enough water.   Variegated licorice does a similarly wonderful thing for white flowers; its cool blue grey foliage makes white look especially crisp, fresh-and very festive.

Posted on: June 21, 2011 6 Comments
Filed Under: Parties and Events, Good Design, Garden Design Tagged With: ,

A Deep V

 

My neighbor down the street has quite the landscape going on.  I stopped by yesterday when I saw she was in the front yard working.  I told her I really liked the garden.  I will say she did not quit edging and weeding while we talked-how like a gardener.  But I do think she was pleased by my interest.  Gardeners are born with the willingness to share gene.  Hers is a small but very striking garden.  Trees and shrubs are entirely symmetrically placed on axis to the front door-as is a wood arbor keeping a pair of red climbing roses aloft.  But the most visually compelling element are the pair of triangular shaped beds that make for a deep V, intersected by the walk to the front door.  

I will say I have never seen landscape beds cut in this shape.  These diagonal lines are very strong and exciting.  The formal geometry of my garden is much more traditionally and quietly laid out in squares and rectangles.  These are bed lines that zoom, zoom. How they looked immediately made me long for a project where I might experiment with this shape. 

The gardens are a mix of perennials and annuals-I see a lot of confidence here in plant choices-it is clearly a collection of those things she likes best. Red flowers are a dominant theme-there are red roses, geraniums, and a pair of continus on either side of the front porch. We did talk a little about it.  She told me that working in the garden was a great stress reliever.  But I could tell she gardened for the sheer joy of it.

It turned out that she was a docent in my garden years ago, when it was on the Pontiac garden tour; we had plenty to talk about.  I do so appreciate that she has turned the better part of her front yard into a garden.  I drive by twice every day, so I can keep up with what is going on.  I told her the neighborhood was lucky to have her.  We have our share of abandoned houses with the grass a foot long; this I hate to see.  


Her garden makes me feel good.

Posted on: June 19, 2011 8 Comments
Filed Under: Good Design, Garden Design, Landscape Design, Garden Stories

Scheming

This is the time of year I start planting annual plants for clients.  I am hoping we are at the tail end of the third rainiest spring on record; I planted all week last week in the cold rain.  It is a good thing I really like to do this; it kept my mind off my wet feet.  I have other things to think about besides being wet-like a color scheme, for instance.  I just planted one small garden at the shop, in illustration of the idea of scheming.  Scheming can refer to some underhanded activity-I prefer to think of it as an orderly way of working, or a way of working where all the pieces fit together in a satisfying way.  The concept of a color scheme for a garden is easy to understand.  Putting plants together where all of the respective colors workwell together-not always so easy.  

Color schemes that feature contrast will be lively.  The wild card of course is that every flower comes with a plant that has leaf color. The heliotrope pictured above has intensely purple flowers.  The leaf color is a medium green.  Flower color may be your primary interest-but there is a green scheme that needs attention too.  The lime licorice in this pot is a green that contrasts well with both the flowers and the leaves of heliotrope.   

Both the lime and variegated licorice are invaluable in planning a color scheme.  This lime green will read yellow, when planted next to yellow flowers.  It will read very lime green when paired with red flowers.  Red geraniums and lime licorice is a color combination that reinvents the red geranium.

This lantana topiary has several shades of yellow in the flowers.  Both lemon yellow and deep yellow are represented.  Why did I choose variegated licorice in this pot?  That more blue green leaf relates better to the deep bluey-green of the lantana foliage.  The alyssum chosen here is called “citron”.  In a composition featuring yellow, it reads cream yellow.   All of the greens featured here are related.  All of the yellows relate.  

The third element in the lantana pot is a yellow potunia.  Potunias are a series of petunias developed  for a compact habit of growth, making them perfect for a container planting that does not necessarily ask for a trailing element. The lantana pot has a piecrust rim and band at the top-I would not want to completely cover that interesting detail.  The pot is not that large-I would not want it to be overwhelmed by the planting.  But the best part are the two tone yellow flowers-a perfect element for a yellow and green scheme so strongly suggested by the lantana standard.  

Persian Queen geraniums have brilliantly lime green leaves; I value this about them more than their hot pink flowers.  The lavender trailing verbena is a cool and striking foil for both the Geranium, and the scotch moss (sagina subulata aurea). Purple and lime green is a great place to start scheming. 

Variations on a color create visual interest.  Heliotrope can vary from deep dark purple, to lavender.  Sky Blue petunias are a very pale version of Royal Velvet petunias.  Yellow petunias with Sky Blue and  Royal Velvet petunias- a color scheme begins to tune up.  Add some white petunias for bright, and some lime licorice to the green scheme makes for a series of color relationships that create visual interest.

The scheme for this small anuual garden is as follows.  Lavender verbena bonariensis, lime and white nicotiana alata are my tall elements.  Mixes of three plants mix more evenly overall than mixes of 2 plants.  My mid level plant-bicolor angelonia-white and purple in the same flower.  Vanilla Butterfly marguerite is the pale cream yellow verson of the intense lemon yellow “Butterfly”.  Purple heliotrope and yellow potunias finish up that level.  On the border, white, sky blue/lavender and dark purple putunias mixed with lime licorice.  This color scheme-white/purple and lime, with a dash here and there of yellow.  If you think you see petunias and licorice planted from back to front between my tall flowers, you are right.  The big growing annuals take a long time to come on.  I like a bed of flowers that engages my eye from the start as well as the finish.  We’ll see if my scheming amounts to something good looking; I have my fingers crossed.  All is in the hands of the plants, and how they grow, now.

Posted on: May 28, 2011 10 Comments
Filed Under: Good Design, Garden Design Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Dark And Dramatic

What makes dark leaved plants so irresistable?  Their relative rarity attracts the eye in an instant.  Of all of the thousands of green leaved plants in my garden, I have no plants with “other than green” leaves.  Were I to plant a red-leaved plant there, it would attract attention.  A red-leaved Japanese maple stands out from the crowd by virtue of its color alone-never mind that it is a tree with many virtues.  Red leaves can create excitement in a visually sleepy place; the color is unexpected.  Though I would not be inclined to indroduce red leaved plants into my landscape, I like them in containers.  These old red leaved spikes provide a dramatic accent to this grouping of pots.  The choice of lime licorice as an underplanting reflects my general rule-if I use dark leaved plants in a container, I stay away from green leaved companion plants.      

Once I make the decision to feature a plant with dark foliage, the supporting cast plants need be friendly to that color.  Lime licorice verges on yellow; inky fingers coleus has a deep purple ground, with just a hint of bright green on the edges.  Medium green and medium red make mud together.  I like sharp, crisp, delicate and dramtic color-no mud.  Big black foliage needs more black foliage to make a dramatic color statement.  The rim of bright green on this Inky Fingers coleus describes its small texture-it brings all of the color to life.  Medium green foliage in this container-thud.    

This red/black foliaged hibiscus is a very strong grower.  It can easily attain 6 feet in a single season.  The red and lime bicolor coleus and lime licorice light up that dark color from below.  I have thought on occasion to pair it with the big ruffly leaved farfugium; the contrast in texture would be great.  The red and green color combination I am reluctant to try.  Want an other than green foliaged scheme?  Follow through with every move you make.

I did make an exception in this case.  The strap leaved New Zealand flax, or phormium, is black leaved; perhaps there is a hint of brown.  The large, bright flower heads of the peach geraniums attract the eye; its great leaves fade away into the distance.  The violet petunias are so covered with blooms that the green foliage is scarcely visible.  This planting is dark and dramatic.

This large and black leaved canna is a boldly sensational plant.  It has great stature, texture, and mass-there is no missing it.  The red violet and lime yellow coleus Arizona Sunset repeats that dark foliage color in a different hue, and leavens it with lime.  The delicate and pale lavender petunias are a sharp contrast-all of that lavender brings out the purple in the canna leaves.  The flowers have all but obliterated any view of its green foliage.  

This centers of these canna leaves appear green when the sun shines through them. This made it fine for me to plant an olive green coleus with a red violet obverse next to it.  The red thread leaved alternanthera appears to darken as it matures-a large mass of red leaves traps light, rather than reflecting it.  The pink petunias and creeping jenny define the lower edge of the alternanthera mass.  Very dark foliage benefits from some lighter company-any other color than medium green, please.

Malabar spinach has very dark green leaves which are red violet on the reverse side.  The stems and knobby flowers are also dark red violet.  Though I love how it climbs to great heights in just one season, I also value that dark foliage.  Persian Shield and black sweet potato vine mirror that color quite well.  This pot was dark up 12 feet into the sky, and just as dark, down to the ground.  This made me think a big button of green-foliaged Red Sun zinnias would work.  

The very dark purple oxalis triangularis is one of my favorite plants.  That rich dark red violet leaf-so beautiful.  I especially like it with Solenia orange begonia.  Very little of the green leaves of the begonia are visible-this is a study in orange and dark red violet.  The varigated licorice is not your garden variety green-it looks as fresh as the description mint green suggests. The big idea here-should you choose to include dark foliaged plants in your landscape, garden, or containers, pay even more attention to the color you put with them.

Posted on: May 18, 2011 7 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Design, Good Design Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,