Colorful Annuals for Shade

Posted in containers for shade, shade annuals with tags , on August 24, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops within the US.  For catalogues and announcements of local events, please send your full name, mailing address, and cell number to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com and indicate whether you are interested in snowdrops, hellebores, and/or hostas.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Colorful container for part shade

Every year I  design the window boxes and main container at my family’s camp  in Maine.  Someday I want to write an article on all the combinations I have used, but right  now this summer’s offering is all I can handle.  I really enjoy the process of putting together the plantings because, at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens, I don’t get the chance to work with annuals (although I also use perennials in the containers).  The process of designing containers is like creating a temporary work of art.  Cramming all the colors, textures, habits, and heights into one pot to be viewed just for the season is fun.

The container and the window boxes are by the front door, which faces the path coming down from the road.  It is a part shade site, but it gets a lot of morning sun, making almost any plant suitable.  I have used plants that take full to part sun and also plants that require part to full shade, and all have thrived.   Over the years, my plant choices have become taller and more dramatic, with 2011 being my most colorful design yet.  The house is stained driftwood gray, and the only color limitation is the front door, which is eggplant colored.

Just in case you want to use some of these plants in your own containers, here are the details.  In the pot above, height, interesting texture, and color is provided by the annual red fountain grass, Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’.  I  use this grass a lot in containers because it is very reliable and only gets better as the season progresses.  The middle of the containers is filled with purple ‘Dark Star’ and orangey pink ‘Sedona’ coleus, both reliable workhorses. The star of the mid level is a new plant to me, perennial golden aralia, A. cordata ‘Sun King’.  It grows in part to full shade and matures at 3′ by 3′.  Lower down is the tuberous begonia ‘Nonstop Apricot’ and spilling out the front are purple-leafed sweet potato vine ‘Midnight Lace’ and orange million bells ‘Aloha Orange’.

The window boxes are a few feet away from the front door so I use many of the same plants and colors.  However, my choices are limited to lower growing plants because I  don’t want to block the kitchen windows.  I  also like to choose plants, like the coleus, that look beautiful from the back when viewed from inside the house.  In addition to the purple sweet potato vine, million bells, coleus, and begonia found in the pot, I  have added the chartreuse sweet potato vine ‘Emerald Lace’.

We enjoy this planting from inside and out.

Carolyn

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my website’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

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Chanticleer Part 2: Garden Seating

Posted in garden to visit, landscape design with tags , on August 8, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

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Chanticleer, near ruinA grouping of chairs in the Chanticleer garden.

Chanticleer is a very unique and intimate place in Wayne, Pennsylvania, U.S., that calls itself “A Pleasure Garden”.  In my April article of that title, I explained why that moniker perfectly describes Chanticleer.   It is a garden designed by individuals who are both artists and plantspeople.   Every plant in the garden is  placed there not only for its pleasing horticultural attributes, but also as an object in the overall design for color and pattern and to provoke a feeling or reaction in the onlooker.  Although this is a serious garden, whimsy and the element of surprise are important considerations.  And the attention to detail is amazing.

A stone armchair evocative of the Flintstones near the Ruin Garden.

Matching sofa

Stone remote

When I revisited Chanticleer recently, I realized that I could help readers understand just how unique this garden is by focusing on one element: garden seating.  In fact, no other aspect of the garden demonstrates more clearly the complex thought process that must go into each of Chanticleer’s design decisions.  Garden seating is not just for sitting, in fact, it may be primarily for viewing.  It is used to evoke feelings in the viewer, of coolness in the heat, of enclosure in open spaces, of grandeur, of restfulness, of mirth, of tradition.  It draws the eye, completes a vignette, moves you through the garden, or slows you down.  It is integrated in the landscape in a way I have never seen anywhere else.

The seating on the porch of the Chanticleer House is very traditional.  It feels as if the Rosengarten family is just around the corner.

Chanticleer has inspired me over the years to add more thoughtful resting places to my own garden and to think of every element of the garden as important, not just the plants.  I hope you too will take away some good ideas as we walk around Chanticleer together trying out the seating (and the water fountains because I love them too!).

The plantings around this bench in the entrance garden change through the year.  When I visited, they were tropical.

A sliding bench in the shade of an elaborate arbor in the Tennis Court Garden.

The seating at Chanticleer is often colorful.

It can even match the flowers.

Whimsical bench in the Vegetable Garden.

Water fountain on the path to the Ruin Garden, far right.

Detail of water fountain, incorporating the oak leaf theme of the Ruin Garden.

I feel cooler just looking at these chairs across a sea of shimmering grass below the Ruin Garden.

This secluded bench in Minder Woods is a work of art.

Overlooking the Pond Garden is a large flagstone terrace covered by an arbor sheltering shady seating–very popular on Friday evenings in summer when Chanticleer is open late for picnics.

Pond Garden

A side path in the Asian woods brings you to this seating area–there is always an elegant arrangement in the vase.

Behind this area, also in the Asian Woods, is a bamboo forest, and the chairs incorporate the motif.  The stone flower sunk in the path inspired me to place similar features at the junctures of my woodland paths.

Simple benches on the porch of the restroom in the Asian woods.

My children loved to watch the water snake out of the stone trough attached to this water fountain near the Asian Woods.

A totally different feeling is evoked by these more traditional porch chairs along the paved path up to the Chanticleer House, almost like a grandstand from which to view the action instead of retreat from it.

This photograph and the following five are all of different kinds of seating around the Chanticleer House.

The view from the rocking chairs–so peaceful.

Traditional wicker chairs near the Teacup Garden reflect the tropical feel.

Water fountain in the Teacup Garden.

Bench in secluded alcove near the Teacup Garden.

Bench in entrance area to Teacup Garden.

If you are thinking of incorporating seating into your garden, Chanticleer is the place to visit for ideas.  From simple to elaborate, from traditional to whimsical, Chanticleer has it all.

Carolyn

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my website’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

Nursery Happenings: The nursery is closed until it cools off in the fall around the middle of September.  If you are on my customer email list, look for an email.  If not, sign up by sending an email to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net with your name and phone number.

66 Comments »

Theme Gardens Part 1: Silver and Blue

Posted in landscape design, Shade Gardening with tags , , , , , on July 24, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Blue includes purple (most “blue” flowers are purple), here hydrangea relative, perennial Chinese deinanthe, D. caerulea.

I am not a trained landscape designer.  Although I did take two landscape design courses at the Temple University Ambler  School of Horticulture, it didn’t stick.  I still don’t plan my gardens ahead of time but instead operate by gut instinct.  I can hear true garden designers like Allan at allanbecker.gardenguru and Donna at Garden Walk Garden Talk sighing all the way from Montreal and Niagara Falls, respectively.  It helps that I really know plants–their heights, habits, textures, blooms, cultural requirements, etc.–but I still do a lot of shifting around and replacing in my gardens that could probably be avoided by a little advance planning.

‘Jack Frost’ brunnera, B. macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’, is a star performer in my silver and blue garden for its true blue flowers and silvery blue leaves.

One technique that has really helped improve my garden’s design (and avoid all the rearranging) is theme gardens.  I know what you are thinking, here’s where she drags out photos of her “white garden” ala Vita Sackville-West.   Well, I don’t have a strictly white garden, but I do have color theme gardens.  My sunniest area is a chartreuse, orange, and purple garden, my main perennial bed focuses on peach, pink, gold, and purple, near the woodland there is a gold and yellow garden, around the deck is a moon garden  (plants that are ornamental at night, mostly white), and across from the deck is my silver and blue garden, which I want to share with you today.

Silvery fragrant flowers of native ‘Brandywine’ foamflower, Tiarella cordifolia ‘Brandywine’, an excellent groundcover whose shiny green leaves turn red in the fall.

Why limit myself that way?  Because having a theme helps me decide what plants belong in a particular garden and what plants don’t.  It provides a unifying factor.  I find it much easier to achieve a cohesive whole if I know why each plant is there, and color themes force me to consider each addition carefully.  And it must work because those are the gardens I get the most compliments on from customers and garden tours.

A massive native Kentucky coffeetree is the focal point of the garden, which is surrounded by white pine needle paths.  Because the tree is so big, I had to climb up on the roof to get shots of the bed.  This photo shows you all the gardens in the area.

My silver and blue garden surrounds a native Kentucky coffeetree, Gymnocladus dioicus, that may be over 100 years old.  It is approaching 100 feet tall and is 8 feet in circumference.  Luckily it does not have extensive surface roots.  The bed is an oval 12 feet wide and 20 feet long.  It started with leftover plants from one of my fall nursery sales, which happened to be silver and blue.  As part of my quest to eliminate all the grass on my back hill, I planted the leftover plants at the base of the Kentucky coffeetree, and my silver and blue garden was born.  I have been adding to it for about five years, and now it is quite mature.

This photo shows the overall design of the bed.  Despite its simple look, there are actually over 25 plant varieties.

One important caveat before I get to the plants, I rarely plant less than five of any one perennial (even with shrubs, I normally plant three).  My customers are always asking me how to have a garden like mine.  Near the top of the list, somewhere after compost, is quantity.  You need a lot of the same plant to make it show up in your garden.  One does not work, three is barely sufficient, five achieves critical mass, and seven is optimal (obviously this depends somewhat on the size of the plant, the bed, and your garden as a whole).

Northern end of the bed dominated by large patches of ‘Dawson’s White’ and ‘Jack Frost’ brunnera and ghost fern.

Southern end of the bed with Hosta ‘Ginko Craig’ and ‘El Nino’, variegated Japanese kerria, K. japonica ‘Variegata’, and white-flowered bigroot hardy geranium, G. macrorrhizum ‘Album’.

The theme of the bed is silver (also incorporating white) and blue (also including lighter shades of purple).  I find that most flowers labeled blue really are a shade of purple.  The colors are provided by the flowers and, probably more importantly, the foliage.  Again, blue leaves are in reality bluish green.  I included some plants that don’t fit the theme for contrast.  Here are some closeups of the bed and some more photos of the individual plants:

Click any photo to enlarge.  A close up of the north end revealing some of the lesser players.  Between the two types of brunnera, Hosta ‘Blueberry Cobbler’ with very blue leaves and gorgeous blueberry purple stems and native sedge ‘Bunny Blue’, Carex laxiculmus ‘Bunny Blue’.  Around the ‘Dawson’s White’, a lungwort seedling, Pulmonaria sp., with silver spots and deep blue flowers, and double white-flowered hybrid hellebore ‘Double Integrity’, H. x hybridus ‘Double Integrity’.

Looking around the back side of the bed reveals Chinese deinanthe (flower pictured in first photo) behind the kerria; native variegated northern sea oats, Chasmanthium latifolium ‘River Mist’ to the left;  blue-leafed and white-flowered dwarf Solomon’s seal, Polygonatum falcatum ‘Pumilum’ in front;and blue-leafed native white wild bleeding-heart, Dicentra eximia ‘Aurora’, in the foreground.

White and silver variegated foliage really shows up in a shade garden: clockwise from upper left, ‘Dawson’s White’ brunnera, ‘El Nino’ hosta (very blue), ‘River Mist’ northern sea oats, and ‘Ginko Craig’ hosta.

‘Lilafee’ barrenwort, Epimedium grandiflorum ‘Lilafee’, provides gorgeous purple flowers in April (the yellow corydalis is an interloper).

Providing blue tones, clockwise from upper left: ‘Bunny Blue’ sedge, Japanese kerria ‘Variegata’, ‘Bertram Anderson’ lungwort with blue flowers and silver leaves, and dwarf Solomon’s seal ‘Pumilum’.

The blue flowers of brunnera are beautiful for a long time in late spring.

Relief from too much variegation is provided by clockwise from upper left: evergreen tassel fern, Polystichum polyblepharum, evergreen hybrid hellebore, H. x hybridus, Asian jack-in-the-pulpit, Arisaema consanguineum, and native Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, which climbs the Kentucky coffeetree.

The color scheme is carried across the pine needle path to the garden surrounding the deck.

In placing the plants in the bed, consideration was given to cultural conditions (soil type, i.e. dry, and light availability), height, bloom time, texture, and habit, but the primary factor was silver and blue color.  The result is a garden with almost year round interest and plants that work together to make the whole more lovely than the sum of its parts.

Carolyn

Notes: Click on any photo to enlarge.  Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my website’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

Nursery Happenings: The nursery is closed until it cools off in the fall around the middle of September.  If you are on my customer email list, look for an email.  If not, sign up by sending an email to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net with your name and phone number.

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July GBBD: The Energizer Bunnies of Summer

Posted in Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, landscape design, native plants, Shade Shrubs with tags , , on July 14, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

‘Westerland’ shrub rose just keeps sending out new sprays of blooms.  EB

Summer is here, and we have reached the middle of the month when I encourage each of you to walk around your garden and assess what you need to add to make this season an exciting time in your landscape.  This time of year I like to focus on the “energizer bunnies” of the garden: plants that bloom or rebloom from late spring through fall. Plants in this category will have “EB” following their caption description.  They give me a reason to stroll in my garden when the weather is not as inviting as spring.  Make sure your garden doesn’t end with the spring rush by adding plants that bloom through summer. 

I love irises, and I think Japanese iris, I. kaempferi, is my favorite.  The colors and the flower shapes are magical.

Make a list and take photographs so that when you are shopping for plants you know what you need and where it should go.  You never know what you might find waiting in your garden like new blooms on my ‘Westerland’ rose (photo at top), which I photographed during my own  inventory.

The remontant or reblooming daylilies are some of my “bunnies”.  They start early and rebloom all season.  Clockwise from left: Hemerocallis ‘Black Eyed Stella’, ‘Stella de Oro (d’Oro)’, and ‘Happy Returns’.  EB

July 15 is Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day for July when gardeners around the world show photos of what’s blooming in their gardens (follow the link to see  photographs from other garden bloggers assembled by Carol at May Dreams Gardens).  Here are  some more highlights from my July stroll through Carolyn’s Shade Gardens, starting with woody plants:

I cut back my ‘Purple Robe’ smokebush, Cotinus coggygria ‘Purple Robe’, every year to improve the leaf color so it never blooms, but I think the red beebalm, Monarda didyma, compliments it nicely.

My grove of native bottlebrush buckeye, Aesculus parviflora, is stunning in bloom in full shade.


St. John’s wort is a woody subshrub that I cut back almost to the ground in the spring when I see signs of new growth.  Hypericum calycinum on the left and H. androsaemum ‘Albury Purple’ on the right.

I don’t grow ‘Winterthur’ beautyberry, Callicarpa ‘Winterthur’,  for the flowers, but between the lime green leaves, the pink flowers, and the striking light purple berries in fall, this shrub is a workhorse.  EB


Himalayan leptodermis, L. oblonga, starts blooming in June and doesn’t quit until later in the fall.  Its flowers are small but abundant.  EB

‘Black Knight’, Buddleia davidii ‘Black Knight’, is my favorite butterfly bush cultivar.  It is the first to come into bloom in June and doesn’t stop until at least mid-fall.  EB

My native honeysuckle vines are still throwing out blooms after a spectacular spring show, here Lonicera sempervirens ‘John Clayton’.  EB

And here native Lonicera sempervirens ‘Crimson Cascade’.  EB

Native oakleaf hydrangea, H. quercifolia, will keep going until winter with its beautiful flowers turning colors and then forming a dried arrangement.  If you don’t have this shrub, it should go to the top of your list!  EB

I am surprised that more gardeners do not grow native flowering raspberry, Rubus odoratus.  It is a gorgeous tropical looking shrub for full shade with brightly colored raspberry flowers.  The native bees love it.

There are so many perennials in bloom that I had to leave a lot out.  I am focusing on the unusual plants and the ones that bloom for a long time:

The deep violet flowers on red stems of ‘Caradonna’ sage, Salvia ‘Caradonna’, continue to rebloom all summer while the yellow corydalis, C. lutea, behind it blooms nonstop from April to December.  EB

This rare and unusual plant, Chinese foxglove, Rehmannia elata, appeared in my rock garden without my help, but I am glad it did.

Butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, with catmint, Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’

Many hosta have quite beautiful flowers, especially if they are compact and white, here the species Hosta tokudama.

Reportedly there are 8,000 hosta cultivars, but some just stand out in the garden: Hosta ‘Summer Lovin’

The gorgeous corrugated blue leaves, white flowers, and elegant habit of Hosta ‘Blue Angel’ have stood the test of time.

Hosta ‘Great Expectations’ is also a classic with white flowers.

I am infatuated with the mouse ears series of miniature hostas, and one of their wonderful attributes is that their flowers are compact and proportional to their size, here ‘Holy Mouse Ears’.

I have tried so many of these orange coneflowers, Echinacea cultivar,  only to have them die, revert, or display a virus.  This is the only one that survived and, of course, I lost its tag.

‘Concord Grape’, Tradescantia ‘Concord Grape’, is my favorite cultivar of US native spiderwort.  I cut it to the ground completely after flowering to rejuvenate the plant.

Giant ox eye, Telekia speciosa, is an unusual sunflower-like perennial that reaches 4 to 6 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide in the full shade of my London plane trees.

Solitary clematis, C. integrifolia, just keeps blooming and blooming, here with orange million bells, Calibrachoa ‘Aloha Hot Orange’.  EB

I always read that the groundcover autumn leadwort, Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, blooms in the fall, but in my garden it starts in June and keeps going through fall.  You can’t beat the true blue color all season.  EB

I have a collection of hens and chicks, but I think this is my favorite: Sempervivum arachnoideum ‘Red Cobweb’.  When not in bloom, the chicks are red and covered with cobwebs.

This is the second flush of bloom on ‘Sarastro’ bellflower, Campanula ‘Sarastro’, the first flush has double the flowers.  I have tried several large-flowered bellflowers, and ‘Sarastro’ is the best.  EB

I devote a large space in my meadow (you have to, it spreads) to beebalm, Monarda didyma, the flowers are so spectacular.

I always let some of my onion sets get away from me so they will produce this beautiful flower after all my other alliums are done.

If I had the right growing conditions for red hot pokers, Kniphofia ‘Alcazar’, I would have every cultivar, but sunny, hot, dry, well drained conditions are few and far between at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens.

Spiny bear’s breeches, Acanthus spinosus, just keeps blooming and blooming.  EB

I will leave you with the very unusual and long lasting  ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’ sea holly, Eryngium giganteum ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’.  Miss Willmott was a 19th century English gardener who secretly sprinkled seeds of this sea holly in gardens she visited leaving behind her “ghost”.  EB

Please let me know in a comment/reply which flowers are “energizer bunnies” in your summer garden.  If you participated in GBBD, please provide a link so my nursery customers can read your post.

Carolyn

I made this collage for a customer email, but I couldn’t resist including it in this article.  The flowers of summer:

Notes: Click on any photo to enlarge.  Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my website’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

Nursery Happenings: The nursery is closed until it cools off in the fall around the middle of September.  If you are on my customer email list, look for an email.  If not, sign up by sending an email to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net with your name and phone number.

46 Comments »

The Weird and the Wonderful

Posted in garden to visit, Shade Perennials with tags , , , , on July 5, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Nursery News:  Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops within the US.  For catalogues and announcements of local events, please send your full name, mailing address, and cell number to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com and indicate whether you are interested in snowdrops, hellebores, and/or hostas.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

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The flowers of Farges’s cobra lily (Asian jack-in-the-pulpit), Arisaema fargesii, are spectacular.

Our recent trip to North Carolina for my son’s college graduation (see North Carolina and Duke Gardens) included a visit to Plant Delights Nursery just south of Raleigh.  Plant Delights is a mail order nursery started in 1988 and specializing in new and rare perennials, including many shade plants like jack-in-the-pulpits, wild ginger, mayapples, and toad-lilies.  The sales area is quite large and well laid out and, of course, purchases were made.  But the real reason I visited was to spend time in what Plant Delights calls the Juniper Level Botanic Gardens, a five acre display garden featuring the weird and wonderful plants they sell plus additional plants that are being trialed.

Golden variegated bush ivy, x Fatshedera lizei ‘Annemieke’, which I have never seen before, evidently resulted from a cross between a houseplant and ivy (not hardy in zone 6 unfortunately).

Michael and I spent over two hours in the shade section of the gardens (we never made it to the sunny side) admiring and photographing all the amazing plants displayed there.  I have to thank Michael who was by my side the whole time viewing (with suitable comments) every plant I pointed out and patiently recording the botanical name of every plant I photographed.  He even pointed out some of his own and never said don’t you think we should be going.  That’s dedication.

This lacecap hydrangea, H. serrata ‘Burgundy Edge’, was growing literally in the dark.

I love jack-in-the-pulpits, both native and Asian, and Plant Delights must have the best collection in the U.S.  Here are some of my favorites:

I didn’t realize that there were variegated forms of our native jack-in-the-pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum, but I saw two at Plant Delights: ‘Black Jack’ above and a white variegated cultivar called ‘Starburst’.

Taiwan cobra lily, Arisaema taiwanense

Jack-in-the-pulpit cross, Arisaema formosanum x consanguineum

Pinellia tripartita ‘Atropurpurea’

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Arisaema thunbergii

Arisaema thunbergii ‘Wakayama’

Farges’s cobra lily, Arisaema fargesii, a close up of the flower appears at the beginning of the article.

The leaves of Japanese cobra lily, Arisaema ringens, are immense.

Here is Michael standing next to Arisaema ringens for scale.

I can’t imagine that Plant Delights’ collection of another of my favorites, mayapples, Podophyllum sp., can be surpassed:

Chinese mayapple, Podophyllum delavayi

Chinese mayapple, Podophyllum versipelle

I had never seen the flowers of Podophyllum ‘Spotty Dotty’.

Chinese mayapple, Podophyllum pleianthum

Chinese mayapple, Podophyllum difforme, looks like it should be growing on Mars.

Plant Delights also has a comprehensive collection of wild gingers:

I wish my ‘Galaxy’ wild ginger, Asarum takaoi ‘Galaxy’, would grow like this.

Asarum takaoi ‘Sekkyo’

Asarum kumageanum

The flower of Asarum nobilissimum

Asarum maximum ‘Shell Shocked’

I found a number of other weird and wonderful shade plants that I would like to add to my gardens:

Barrenwort, Epimedium fargesii

Toad-lily, Tricyrtis ‘Lunar Eclipse’

Very rare Paris species labeled “Wavy Leaf”

Native bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis “Deep Lobes”

Rosa ‘Verdun’ was covered with flowers in full shade.

Toad-lily, Tricyrtis ‘Lemon Twist’

I was finally able to purchase a shredded umbrella plant, Syneilesis aconitifolia, which I have been coveting for years!

If you are in the area, I highly recommend that you visit the Juniper Level Botanic Gardens.  Plant Delights is open eight weekends a year for garden visits.  Their website lists the dates.  If you can’t visit then, you can always make an appointment.

Carolyn

Notes: Click on any photo to enlarge.  Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

 

77 Comments »

North Carolina and Duke Gardens

Posted in garden to visit with tags , , on June 28, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

The interstate plantings of the North Carolina Highway Department are so beautiful that they could cause traffic accidents from the gawking of speeding gardeners.

My oldest son just graduated from Elon University, in Elon, North Carolina.  My husband and I decided to make the graduation trip a mini-vacation so we spent four nights in Elon with two days dedicated to plants (of course).  Traveling to gardens around North Carolina is a pleasure due to the amazing roadside plantings installed by the highway department.  Instead of vast expanses of boring grass like we have in Pennsylvania, North Carolinians are treated to colorful displays of poppies, dame’s rocket, and larkspur.  Of course, it was an interstate so getting to the side to photograph the flowers was a hair-raising experience.  However, we made it:

One of our garden visiting days was spent at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham, North Carolina.  Duke Gardens is situated on 55 acres adjacent to Duke University’s West Campus and the Duke University Medical School.  The gardens opened in 1939, and today are comprised of four main areas: the historic terraced gardens, the native plant garden, the Asiatic Arboretum, and the Doris Duke Center for information and education.  We toured all four areas and found fascinating plants and enchanting sights everywhere we turned.

The first area, the Doris Duke Center and Gardens, encompasses the visitors’ center with educational facilities, a gift shop, and formal areas for events.  There was a wedding going on when we were there in the lovely gardens out back so we didn’t explore this part of the garden as much as we might have.

Behind the Doris Duke Center is a shady spring woodland garden.

Next to the woodland is a very interesting multi-level bog garden.

The second area, known as the Historic Gardens, is accessed down an impressive walk bordered by an allee of trees.  This area is the oldest and most formal part of the gardens with Italianate terraces full of annuals and perennials, a wisteria-covered pergola, a fish pool, a rock garden, and much more.  We ate lunch in the small shaded courtyard of the charming Terrace Cafe.

Formal entrance walk to the Historic Gardens.

The entrance walk leads to the rose garden.

The South Lawn area was filled with picnickers and surrounded by majestic southern magnolias, M. grandiflora, in full bloom.  As a northerner, I was captivated by the size and beauty of these trees, which were everywhere in NC.

The flower buds of southern magnolias are huge.

The flowers are breathtaking.

The rock garden area in the Historic Gardens.

The Iris Walk and Bridge.

I love these textures and colors.


The Terrace Cafe is in an elegant stone building surrounded by lovely shade gardens.  Out back is a  stone courtyard with outdoor seating.

The third area of Duke Gardens, and my favorite, is the H.L. Blomquist Garden, featuring over 900 species of regional natives.  The plants are very well-labeled and displayed, making it an excellent resource for gardeners interested in adding natives to their landscape.  The shady paths meander through lovely stands of  trees and shrubs underplanted with shade-loving groundcovers.

The gatehouse at the entrance of the H.L. Blomquist Garden.

Path on the hillside above the Blomquist Pavilion.

There were many mature loblolly pines, Pinus taeda.

The bark of loblolly pines is gorgeous.

This is the biggest oakleaf hydrangea, H. quercifolia, I have ever seen.

I was especially taken with this shady groundcover known as beetleweed, Galax urceolata.

I also wish this wild ginger or heartleaf, Hexastylis lewisii, would grow as a groundcover in my garden.

Duke Gardens is huge and by the time we got to the fourth area, the W.L. Culberson Asiatic Arboretum, we were pretty hot and tired so not many photos were taken.  There are over 1.300 Asian species and cultivars in this collection.

A great blue heron looks for fish in the Asiatic Arboretum’s large pond with the red Ayamebashi or Iris Bridge in the background.

The shrub collection in the Asiatic Arboretum is extensive with many I had never seen before, including this large spider azalea, Rhododenron macrosepalum.

I was captivated by the orange flowers and evergreen-looking leaves on this pomegranate, Punica granatum ‘Madame Lagrelle’ (thanks for the ID help) .

I wanted to include a close up of the flowers for my good friend Donna at Garden Walk Garden Talk.  I think she may want to plant this shrub next to her orange iris!

I hope you have enjoyed your virtual tour of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens.  If you are ever in North Carolina, it is definitely worth a real visit.  I have added a link to my sidebar under Places to Visit so you will always be able to find it.

Carolyn


Notes: Click on any photo to enlarge.  Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.


Nursery Happenings:  The nursery is closed until it cools off in the fall around the middle of September.  If you are on my customer email list, look for an email.  If not, sign up by sending an email to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net with your name and phone number.

66 Comments »

Supporting Sustainable Living: Part Two

Posted in green gardening, organic gardening, sustainable living with tags , , , , on June 21, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

My efforts to establish native Indian pink, Spigelia marilandica, have really paid off.  Nevertheless, I covet this six-year-old stand at Chanticleer.

In my articles My Thanksgiving Oak Forest and Supporting Sustainable Living: Part One, I explained that sustainable living is very important to me, and I have supported it through planting and promoting native plants like the Indian pink pictured above, gardening organically, not watering, replenishing the soil, composting, eliminating lawn, and initiating and running an invasive plant removal program, among other activities.  I also explained that I am uniquely placed to have a wider impact through my interactions with gardeners at my nursery.

The check in table at the Conservancy event.  These young women came specifically to talk with the Lyme disease expert.

In my article Powered By Compost, I described a composting event to be held at my nursery sponsored by the Radnor Conservancy (dedicated to the preservation of open space) to raise township residents’ awareness of the magical powers of compost.  Reader response to this article was very high so I thought everyone might like to find out how the event went.  I also wanted to highlight my latest venture into sustainability–honeybees.

In Radnor Township where I live, we are blessed with the best free municipal compost in the whole area, if not the whole state of Pennsylvania.  The first station at the Conservancy event showed how to transport township compost to your home without renting a truck or messing up your car.  I thought their solution was very clever:

Event organizers demonstrate loading compost into a minivan.

The vehicle is protected from the compost by a blue tarp (how could we function without those?) attached to the side of the van with large orange wood clamps.

There was a lot of interest in the Conservancy’s method of transporting compost.

Two Master Gardeners from the Penn State Cooperative Extension Service were busy all day explaining composting using an outdoor bin and indoor composting with red worms.  They brought sample bins for attendees to explore:

Penn State Master Gardeners under the carport of our carriage house explaining bin composting.

My husband Michael was stationed in the manure pit profiled in Powered By Compost.  He explained our laissez faire method of producing compost by piling up kitchen waste, leaves, and garden refuse in the pit and turning it about three times a year.  Participants were very interested:

Michael explains that composting does not have to be complicated to another set of interested attendees.

Michael has had Lyme disease seven times with serious long term implications for his health so the prevention information provided by Doug Fearn, president of the Lyme Disease Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, was especially near and dear to my heart.  This is an unpublicized epidemic in the U.S. and should be taken very seriously:

Doug Fearn explaining various Lyme disease prevention techniques.

As promised, delicious refreshments of homemade brownies and chocolate chip cookies accompanied by mint iced tea were provided on my deck:

A fun and informative afternoon was had by all!

Trey Flemming from Two Gander Farm and the Bryn Mawr Farmer’s Market places the first hive at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens.

The other “sustainable” event at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens lately was the arrival of the first hive of honeybees.  I have been trying unsuccessfully for quite a while to convince Michael that beekeeping was in his future.  Knowing when to pick up my marbles and go home, I switched my efforts to finding a local beekeeper who might want to place hives at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens.  This spring I sold plants at my town’s growers’ farmer’s market, the Bryn Mawr Farmer’s Market, and met Trey Flemming, a beekeeper and farmer from Two Gander Farm in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania.

Trey demonstrates the docility of his bees.

I purchased some delicious honey that Trey produces from an invasive nonnative plant that I constantly battle, Japanese knotweed.  Having a quarter acre of this noxious invader, I thought Trey might be interested in placing some hives here, and he was.  This week the first of three hives arrived.  Trey will market this honey at the Bryn Mawr Farmer’s Market as local Bryn Mawr honey, and I will receive five pounds of honey and the gratification of supporting a local farmer: a win, win situation if there ever was one!

The bees crawl in and out of the hive and over Trey’s hand with their future nectar source, Japanese knotweed, in the foreground.

I am so thrilled to be given the opportunity to support the Radnor Conservancy, composting, and a local farmer.  It just takes the accumulation of small efforts by each of us to contribute to sustainable living in a big way.

Carolyn

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my website’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

Nursery Happenings: The nursery is closed until it cools off in the fall around the middle of September.  If you are on my customer email list, look for an email.  If not, sign up by sending an email to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net with your name and phone number.

56 Comments »

June GBBD: Baby It’s Hot Outside

Posted in Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, landscape design, native plants, Shade Shrubs with tags , , on June 14, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Yes, it really is that color: herbaceous peony ‘America’.

Even though it is not technically summer yet, we have been hit with weather that my twenty-year-old son informed me is more suitable for August.   Six of the last eleven days (as of June 10) have been over 90 degrees, and on June 9 it topped 97 degrees (36 degrees C).  Nevertheless, we have reached the middle of the month when I encourage each of you to walk around your garden and assess what you need to add to make early summer an exciting time in your landscape.  Do you need more flowering trees, shrubs, and vines to give you a reason to stroll in your garden?  Could your garden benefit from more perennials that bloom in June after the spring rush?

Native hybrid false indigo, Baptisia x variicolor ‘Twilite Prairieblues’, provides a cool oasis for the eyes.


Spiny bear’s breeches, Acanthus spinosus

Make a list and take photographs so that when you are shopping for plants you know what you need and where it should go.  It’s beautiful outside now that the temperatures have dropped back into the 70s and low 80s (June 11), and you never know what you might find waiting in your garden like the jaw-droppingingly beautiful red peony (photo at top), which I photographed during my own  inventory.

Clematis ‘Warsaw Nike’ on an antique church gate.

Native hummingbird magnet Indian pink, Spigelia marilandica.

June 15 is Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day for June when gardeners around the world show photos of what’s blooming in their gardens (follow the link to see  photographs from other garden bloggers assembled by Carol at May Dreams Gardens).  Here are  some more highlights from my June stroll through Carolyn’s Shade Gardens:

Sicilian honey lily, Nectaroscordium siculum ssp. bulgaricum, just appeared in my garden one day, but I am glad it did.

Readers really enjoyed my photos of woody plants–trees, shrubs, and vines–so I have been photographing every woody plant that has come into bloom since May 15.  Most have finished blooming now due to the excessively hot temperatures, but I am including them anyway.  Let’s start with the trees.  You know by now that I love magnolias so here are my last three:

Oyama magnolia, M. sieboldii, was still in bud on May 15, but came into bloom shortly thereafter.  It is a great tree for part shade.

I can’t decide whether I like the bud just before it opens or the flower better.

The gorgeous flowers point down and are best viewed from below.

Native sweetbay magnolia, M. virginiana, also grows in the shade.

The flowers of sweetbay magnolia have the best fragrance of any magnolia I grow.

My native southern magnolia, M. grandiflora, will never compare to specimens growing in the south, but it is still a beautiful evergreen tree suitable for part shade.

Southern magnolia starts blooming in mid-June.

I am also a huge fan of dogwoods and extend their season by growing lots of different kinds:

Native pagoda dogwood, Cornus alternifolia, suckers to form a colony.

The flowers of pagoda dogwood produce beautiful pink-stemmed blue berries loved by birds.

The Rutger’s hybrid dogwood, Cornus x ‘Constellation’, is a cross between Kousa dogwood and our native flowering dogwood.

‘Constellation’ flowers between its two parents–great for extending the dogwood season– and is disease resistant.

Kousa dogwood, Cornus kousa, flowers the latest of all my dogwoods.

The flowers of kousa dogwood are followed by very showy cherry-like fruit.

I have a very old golden-chain tree, Laburnum wateri, which I love but really should replace.


June is a great month for shrubs:

The shrub rose ‘Westerland’ is truly magical.  The deep red buds open to this gorgeous apricot flower, which ages to a peachy pink.

Rugosa roses are completely foolproof, just requiring occasional pruning.  Clockwise from upper left:  Rosa rugosa ‘Polar Ice’, ‘Hansa’, ‘Alba Plena’, ‘Alba’.

I guess Knock Out roses are considered passe in rose circles, but I can’t help thinking I am going to my first prom every time I look at ‘Blushing Knock Out’.

Native oakleaf hydrangea, H. quercifolia, nestled in full shade at the base of my huge black walnut.

Oakleaf hydrangeas are ornamental 365 days a year, but nothing is more spectacular than their gigantic conical flowers.

Peonies remind me of my childhood, and I love their fragrance.  Clockwise from upper left: ‘Coral Fay’, unknown, unknown (dug from a friend’s grandmother’s garden), ‘Raspberry Sundae’.

Clockwise from upper left: ‘Cheddar Cheese’, ‘Sarah Bernhardt’, ‘Angel Cheeks’, ‘Karl Rosenfeld’.

Linden viburnum, V. dilataum

The flowers of my linden viburnum never produce berries.

Redvein enkianthus, E. campanulatus, grows in full shade.

The exotic flowers of redvein enkianthus cover the shrub completely.

Chinese sweetshrub, Sinocalycanthus chinensis, grows in full shade too.

Its flowers are plentiful and gorgeous but not fragrant like our native.

Native hybrid sweetshrub, Calycanthus x ‘Hartlage Wine’, is a cross between the Chinese sweetshrub above and our native.

Its flowers and foliage are more beautiful than its parents, but it has no fragrance.  Still it is one of my top five favorite shrubs.

Old-fashioned weigela, W. florida ‘Wine and Roses’, has deep burgundy leaves.  It flowers later than my other weigela cultivars.

The showy pink flowers of ‘Wine and Roses’.


Vines are a favorite of mine:

Clematis clockwise from upper left: ‘Warsaw Nike’, ‘General Sikorski’, solitary clematis (C. integrifolia, really a perennial not a vine), alpine clematis (C. alpina ‘Stolwijk Gold’).  I grow ‘General Sikorski’ up through my ‘Yellow Bird’ magnolia, and I grow gold-leafed ‘Stolwijk Gold’ up the ‘General Sikorski’–you can never have too many vines.

American wisteria, W. frutescens ‘Amethyst Falls’, flowers after the Asian varieties.

The tightly packed flowers of ‘Amethyst Falls’ American wisteria.

I adopted this vine as a tiny plant at a rock garden society sale.  It turned out to be a rare hardy jasmine,  Jasminum x stepanense.  Two years later it was covered with these fragrant pale pink trumpets–what a deal!

The charming flowers of hardy jasmine vine.

This climbing rose with a multitude of small pink flowers in bloom right now came without a name.  I grow it around and through my anemone clematis, C. montana var. rubens, which flowers earlier.  If anyone knows the name of the rose, please let me know.

A few scenes of the flower beds in June:

Main sunny perennial border: not a full day but as sunny as it gets at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens.

The shady gold garden under a 120-year -old London plane tree.

Our cat Otto enjoying the wall garden.

Please let me know in a comment/reply what flowers are blooming in your spring garden.  If you participated in GBBD, please provide a link so my nursery customers can read your post.

Carolyn

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my website’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

Nursery Happenings: The nursery is closed until it cools off in the fall around the middle of September.  If you are on my customer email list, look for an email.  If not, sign up by sending an email to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net with your name and phone number.

100 Comments »

Powered by Compost

Posted in green gardening, How to, organic gardening, Shade Gardening with tags , on June 5, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Some of my gardens powered by compost.

Compost is king in my garden.  It is the only thing I use: no other soil amendments and no fertilizers.  All the beautiful plants and lush growth are powered by compost.  I am frequently asked where I get my compost and how I use it.  This post will answer those questions and highlight an exciting compost-centered event taking place in my gardens this Sunday.

The soil at the top is from my back slope ruined by erosion caused by misguided lawn attempts and chemicals.  The soil at the bottom is from the undisturbed woods less than 10′ away.

The pre-existing soil at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is (was) terrible (see top photo above).  I am on the side of a hill where the previous owners had tried to grow grass for years.  The soil was hard and depleted by the use of lawn chemicals and by erosion.  Terraces were constructed down one side of the house and filled with rocky infertile soil.  Construction rubble from additions to the house in the 1950s and 1960s was dumped in what is now my woodland garden.  The soil in the beds on the back side of the house was compacted by their former use as a carriage path.  Finally, the whole property was used as a dump (pre-trash collection) by the estate of which it was formerly a part so the beds are full of glass, old slate from roof replacements, refuse from coal burning furnaces, and miscellaneous trash.  Digging can be quite an adventure!

This is a photo from 1995 showing the debris that came out of one relatively small planting hole at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens.  Click on any photo to enlarge.

Given the deplorable condition of the existing soil, compost is essential.  It reaches my plants in four different ways.  First, whenever I create a new bed in my gardens, I spread 4 to 6 inches of compost on top of the soil and dig it into the bed, removing all the rocks and debris.  I use the rocks to line the paths in my woodland garden.  One visitor asked me where I got my rocks, and, finding out they came from the beds, told me how lucky I was.  I feel about as lucky as the early farmers in New England must have felt when they built all those rock walls around their fields.

The rocks lining the paths in the woodland garden.

Second, even though the beds are prepared with compost, I add compost to the hole every time I plant a plant.  I mix the existing soil half and half with compost.  Third, as explained in Fall Clean-up, I grind all the leaves in the fall and use them to mulch my beds.  This mulch breaks down over the course of the year to make a thick compost layer on top of the existing soil.  Leaves that fall on the lawn are ground up in place and left there to fertilize the grass as described in Leaves on the Lawn. Finally, I don’t clean the leaves out of most of my beds: they are left there to act as mulch and form more compost.

The current state of the depleted back slope.

I use a lot of compost because I also need it to pot all the plants that I grow to sell at my nursery.  Where does it all come from?  We produce a lot of it ourselves in a simple, easy, and nontechnical way.  I get frustrated with the articles written about composting because they make it sound like you need to follow complex procedures and buy expensive equipment to produce compost.  All those procedures and equipment merely speed the process up (and possibly make it neater), but all you need to produce compost is a pile.  It helps if you turn it occasionally, but even that is not necessary if you are willing to wait for it to break down naturally.

The path to our compost pit.

Our “garage” is really the carriage house and the stable for the estate that used to be here.   There is even a metal grain bin on the second floor with chutes and levers to bring the grain to the first floor.  The horses that pulled the carriages produced manure (no surprise there), which was deposited in a manure pit behind the stable.  Back then, they built everything to last so the manure pit is a 12 foot square enclosure surrounded on four sides by 7 foot tall stone walls.

The left side of the compost pit where we are currently throwing kitchen and garden refuse.

We throw all our garden and kitchen refuse into this pit, including leaves, sod, noninvasive weeds, ashes, small sticks, etc.  There is no organized layering process–whenever there’s something to go in, it’s thrown on top of the pile, hopefully, but not always, on the side of the pile currently being built up.  The other side contains the compost being used.  My husband turns the pile thoroughly about three times a year, and that’s it: no complicated procedures or equipment required!

Top view of the manure pit we use for producing compost.  It is “decorated” with self-sown fern-leafed and yellow corydalis and a large climbing hydrangea.

However, despite the size of this operation, it does not produce nearly enough compost for Carolyn’s Shade Gardens.  We are very fortunate that our township produces excellent compost from the leaves that residents put by the side of the road in the fall to be removed.  Personally, I think removing the leaves from your property is crazy, but for selfish reasons I am glad people do it.  We get truckloads of the township’s beautiful compost to supplement our own.

One of the newest beds powered by compost.

As I explained in Supporting Sustainable Living, I am uniquely placed to encourage sustainable gardening practices as I promote and sell native plants at my nursery,  answer my customers’ requests for advice, and give tours of my gardens to horticultural groups.  Sustainable living is very important to me as I described in My Thanksgiving Oak Forest.  So when the Radnor Conservancy, dedicated to promoting open space in my township,  asked me to speak, I thought why not go farther and offer my gardens as a venue for a fund raising and educational event.

Rose and peony beds

The creative people at the Conservancy came up with the theme “Dirt … lots of it!”, an afternoon devoted to educating people about compost on Sunday, June 12, from 3 to 5 pm at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens.  Here is the flyer:

If you come, and I hope you will, you will find various “stations” throughout my gardens staffed by knowledgeable Master Gardeners able to answer any question you have about composting.  They will demonstrate outdoor composting, indoor composting with worms, composting equipment and tools, grinding leaves for mulch, and how to transport township compost easily and cleanly to your home.  You will be able to order discount compost bins, and information on lyme disease and its prevention will be provided.

Main perennial border

As you find out everything you ever wanted to know about composting, you can stroll through my beautiful gardens and shop for plants in my nursery area.  And best of all, delicious refreshments will be provided.  As directed in the flyer above,  if possible, please register  in advance for the event with the Conservancy by calling them at 610-688-8202 or emailing them at radnor.conservancy@comcast.net.  You can also show up without registering.  The event is open to everyone, not just Radnor Township residents.  I hope to see you there.

Carolyn

Just a note to say thanks to John at Macgardens and his wife Beth who visited Carolyn’s Shade Gardens during my open house on Saturday.  Meeting fellow garden bloggers is so fun because they immediately feel like old friends.  If any other garden bloggers are in the area, please stop by.

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

Nursery Happenings: I will have my traditional closing weekend open hours this Saturday, June 11, from 9 am to 3 pm and Sunday, June 12, from 10 am to noon.  You don’t need to make an appointment, and you can park in the driveway.  You can also shop for plants during the Radnor Conservancy  event on Sunday, June 12, from 3 to 5 pm.  But remember you can make an appointment to shop 24/7 by sending me an email at carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net.  There is  still a great selection of hostas, ferns, astilbes, hardy geraniums, and summer and fall blooming shade plants available.

71 Comments »

Larger Hostas

Posted in container gardening, hosta, Shade Gardening, Shade Perennials with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 30, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

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Hosta Teeny-weeny Bikini' at Carolyn's Shade GardensHosta ‘Teeny-weeny Bikini’: I couldn’t resist including one more miniature.

In my recent article Miniature (& Small) Hostas, I explained my evolving relationship with hostas and how my collecting tendencies had led me to miniature hostas for space reasons.  I display these little treasures in special ways in containers, in my rock garden, or as groundcover in order to highlight their small stature.  However, for specimen plants and variety of leaf color, there is nothing like a larger hosta.  They come in an an infinite number of combinations of colors, heights, widths, leaf shapes, flowers, and habits.  There is a medium to large hosta for every garden condition, both as the star of the show and a lovely backdrop for your other perennials and shrubs.  In this article, I want to highlight some of my favorite larger hostas as well as some cultivars that are new to me.

Mature Hosta tokudama ‘Flavocircinalis

Leaf of mature ‘Flavocircinalis’

Before I get to the plants, however, I want to explain something that took me a while to figure out.  Larger leaf hostas do not look like themselves in a nursery pot because they take one to two years to mature and reach their full size and coloration.  Immature plants will have different shaped leaves, usually pointed, and will not display the intricate color patterns that you can expect on the plant in your garden.   Compare the photos of Hosta tokudama ‘Flavocircinalis’ above and below. That is why at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens, I always encourage customers to look at the mature hostas in the display gardens before making their choices.

Immature plant of ‘Flavocircinalis’

Immature leaf of ‘Flavocircinalis’

Here is a taste of some of my favorite and best-selling larger hostas.  You can view well established specimens of these cultivars in my display gardens:

Hosta ‘June’ was the American Hosta Growers Association 2001 Hosta of the Year with good reason and is the most popular hosta with my customers.

The beautiful leaf coloration of ‘June’.

‘First Frost’ is the 2010 Hosta of the Year.

The leaves of ‘First Frost’ emerge with bright yellow leaf margins, which age to cream (in photo above) and set off its very blue center.

‘Great Expectaions’ is my second biggest selling hosta and has one of the most beautiful habits of any large hosta.

The elegant leaf coloration of ‘Great Expectations’.

‘Earth Angel’ is the 2009 Hosta of the Year and is as large and glorious as its parent ‘Blue Angel’ but with a cream margin.

‘Earth Angel’ is the first giant blue hosta with a contrasting border.  The leaves can reach 18″ x 12″ and a specimen can be 5′ wide.

Hosta tokudama is my favorite of all species hostas and ‘Aureonebulosa’ is my favorite cultivar of the many tokudama offspring.

The cupped and heavily puckered texture of  ‘Aureonebulosa’ is typical of the tokudama group.

‘Fragrant Bouquet’ is the 1998 Hosta of the Year and has fragrant flowers.

‘Fragrant Bouquet’s’ light green leaves really stand out in the shade, and it retains its yellow margins all season.

When I visit hosta collections and displays, some plants always stand out.  I look for these plants in the trade to add to my own gardens and offer to my customers.  Here are some of the cultivars I was able to add this year:

‘Touch of Class’ is a close relative of ‘June’ but with a wide blue border enclosing a central gold stripe.  It has an excellent habit and great slug resistance.

‘Liberty’ is the Hosta of the Year for 2012.  You can see both the yellow coloration of its new leaves and the wide cream margins of its older leaves in the photo above.  For a great shot of its coloration, see both the header and wordless Wednesday photo at Pat and Jim’s Gardening Adventure.

‘Paradigm’ is the 2007 Hosta of the Year.  For a much better photo of its leaves and habit, check out these photos of all the Hostas of the Year, by clicking here.  The American Hosta Growers Association has only picked 17 hostas to be Hosta of the Year out of an estimated 6,000 hosta cultivars in the trade so this accolade is quite a meaningful honor.

‘Fragrant Queen’ is a fragrant hosta boasting very substantial rounded leaves with wide white margins.

I have coveted ‘Brother Stefan’ every time I have seen it.  For a much better photo, showing its coloration, texture, and habit, click here.

Just a few ideas for using larger hostas in your garden:

Left to right: ‘Flavocircinalis’, the species H. tokudama, and ‘June’ massed in front of a Japanese holly.

Left to right: ‘Frances Williams’, ‘Abiqua Drinking Gourd’, ‘Kabitan’, and ‘Earth Angel’.

‘Great Expectations’ displayed as a specimen with other hostas, ferns, epimediums, violets, and hardy geraniums.

A specimen ‘Fragrant Bouquet’ with yellow waxbells, hardy gernaium, and ‘Luxuriant’ bleeding-heart.

A simple but elegant container planting at Duke Gardens in Durham, North Carolina.

A rare Hosta tokudama by itself in a container on my front porch.

Colorful foliage is a fun and essential part of the shade garden.  I hope I have introduced you to some new and intriguing larger hostas that you can add to your shade.

Carolyn

For two more articles on hostas, click here:

Miniature (& Small) Hostas

Hostas for Fall

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here. 

When I want information about hostas, I go to the Hosta Library and My Hosta Database to find photos and comprehensive written descriptions.  I have added both these sites to my sidebar under Plant Information so you will always be able to find them.

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