Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Hellebores have become America’s #1 Deer Proof Plant for Shade Garden.  Pink Frost Hellebore is a  spring flowering shade groundcover with unique silver evergreen foliage. Exciting rare &  drought proof perennial. Watch our video and  find out why this is such a stunning shade plant for the perennial garden.

Grown and shipped in our Jumbo 1 Quart Pots  at www.GreatGardenPlants.com

If you only try one Coneflower this year – make it Red Knee High PPAF Echinacea.

Why?  You’ll get a good reliable Coneflower that comes back every year and it is drop dead gorgeous!

Dependable? You bet!  It has purpurea in its bloodlines which means it will come back year after year. Nothing wimpy here with great performance and LOTS OF BLOOMS!

Echinacea Red Knee High PPAF

I have it on my list of Goosebump plants – we all have a list like that. They are  plants our neighbors google over and well, they give us goosebumps just talking about them.

Red Knee High – yep it’s knee high all right;  nicely proportioned, blooms a long time and the color pairs well with so many colors –  Place it in the middle of the perennial border  and pair with some blues –(I’m fond of Russian Sage Perovskia and Caryopteris)  Enjoy the  butterflies that linger for the show.

Coneflower tip—if you really want some oh-la-la impact, you just got to plant this beauty in groups of 5 or 7.  Seriously, not just 1 or 2, the more the better!

Hardiness, color, performance, goosebump plant – make sure to include Echinacea Red Knee High PPAF this year in your garden.

Oranges and Lemons & Christmas Eve

A December email I received from Dianne S. in California is a nice reminder that Christmas plants go beyond the traditional Poinsettias, particularly if you live in California.  Dianne writes:  We planted Gaillardia Oranges & Lemons last spring and ignored it.  We’ve just had a very unusual rainy spell.  Many of the plants that do bloom this time of year have suffered and have a few blooms, but are a bit bedraggled.  It is Christmas Eve and the Oranges and Lemons Gaillardia is the brightest spot in the yard.  It has grown quite large and is just full of large brightly colored blooms.  (It hasn’t stopped blooming since we planted it in the spring).  You might not think of it as a Christmas plant, but it is helping my Christmas spirit.

Thank you Dianne for a terrific tribute to a persistent long blooming perennial and that your nurturing spirit has not been dampened by the unrelenting rainfall you’ve been experiencing.

Tough as nails Perovskia thrives in a parking lot!

Sans the trees, you got to love this planting of Russian Sage or Perovskia in the middle of a parking lot located at a nursery in Oregon.  Parking lots are not just for vehicles.  If this parking lot was full & you forgot where you parked you car, wouldn’t a beautiful landmark help lead you in the direction of your cars whereabouts?

The amazing thing is how tough Russian Sage Perovskia is.  Russian Sage is native to  the mountains of Pakistan & Afghanistan, so it is  both cold & drought tolerant.

In the heat of the parking lot Russian Sage is thriving with little or no water & looking terrific.  This no-wilt plant loves heat!  Not a lot of other perennials look that colorful, bloom long, and stand up to such rigorous conditions.  Since the stems & leaves give off a pungent scent when crushed, wouldn’t it be great if  a car drove over a few stems to the benefit of the passerby? Hey, you just got to make parking lots more interesting!

If it does this well in a parking lot, can you image how well it would do in a water-less (drought-proof) garden?

I just returned from a fun-filled 10-day trip to England with good friends

This white tall phlox is nestled in the middle of this perennial border at Wisley

Debbie, Jayne & Barb.  We all work in the horticulture industry, so as plants people & adventurers we decided to fill 6 days with visiting & photographing gardens with the balance of our time touring London & other points of interest.  It was the perfect balance.

Our first step was to Wisley, the flagship garden of the Royal Horticultural Society located south of London.  Wisley boasts a large & diverse plant collection, extensive trial gardens along with some pretty fascinating structures.  We were all blown away by the immense herbaceous & woody border which still boasts lots of color in early August.

Tall phlox or Phlox paniculata were in peak bloom. I wish I could have bottled the delightful perfume of this fragrant plant.  My grandmother grew a variety of phlox in her well-manicured perennial garden which added height, color & interest in the waning days of summer.

A number of assorted varieties and colors were placed judiciously in the middle of the border and combined well with neighboring plants.  A white phlox I’m particularly fond of is Phlox David which has highly mildew resistant foliage & can grow up to 40″ tall.  My previous garden had a lot of shade and I found my phlox bloomed very well with 3-4 hours of afternoon sun.

More to follow on this fascinating trip as I sift through images & notes