Gardens from Vacations in Italy

In the oppressive heat of August I’ve been spending a lot of time indoors. I took time to go through our travel photos for inspiring gardens that we have visited. I pulled just a few select examples to share with you. Hope you enjoy!

Rome, Italy:

We have rented (several times) an apartment in an Italian villa on a hill that is a 10-minute walk to the Forum. From the top of the hill, there is a wonderful view of the Vatican in the distance. The gardens are enclosed by walls, including the ancient Aurelian wall on one side at the gate of Porta Metronia. We love the gardens there and enjoyed meals on our private terrace. The gardeners grow vegetables and fruit among the flowers, shrubs and trees.




















Another favorite place in Rome is Villa Borghese, both for the Bernini sculpture and other art inside and the gardens/grounds on the outside. The villa gallery can be visited by advance ticket bookings. The grounds are open without an admission charge. These photos were taking by looking through the wrought iron fence that enclosed the parterre garden.


















Pompeii, Italy:

There are a few ancient gardens restored at the archaeological site of Pompeii. The garden layout was so perfect for the setting. Of course, the site is filled with statuary, mosaics and frescoes. Among the "garden" aspects of the site, what stood out most to me was this water feature and an arbor restored at the site of an ancient villa.




















Florence, Italy:

On most visits to Florence, we spend a half day at Boboli Gardens. This year, there was an exhibit on ancient gardens that included gardening artifacts that had been unearthed at archaeological sites, including Pompeii. In addition to the beautiful gardens and grounds, one can enjoy the fabulous views from different vantage points up the hill. To see photos of those views, visit the link to our Tuscany vacation blog.








Happy Gardening!

Cameron


Gardening with Forum Friends

There was a time when all of my gardening friends were local. Now, I feel as though I have gardening friends from all over the US and in several countries. With my background in technology, I’m not surprised by the capabilities of using the web. What surprises and thrills me is how there is a new society of virtual friends who share stories, advice, photos and similar experiences from around the world!

I’ve been using forums for several years now. My first experience was in building a home, but I also participated in other related forums around kitchens, baths and decorating. I had wonderful experiences there, so I went over to the Cottage Gardening and Carolina Gardening forums. Gardening is my favorite hobby, probably passion. I found there’s a world full of other folks who feel the same way about gardening.

Do you want to know about another gardener’s experience with growing a new perennial in a sunny spot in zone 8? Want to know how to attract butterflies and create your own butterfly garden? Want to post a photo of your garden and ask for some design help? Ask the question and watch the amazing answers and photographs posted in response.

It’s so easy to say wonderful things about my forum friends. Talk about inspiration! The photos, the ideas, the blooms, the flowers…what I’ve seen and what I’ve learned from my forum friends has been nothing short of amazing!

There are some very talented folks who have opened up their warm hearts and their beautiful gardens to the world. They are a part of my everyday life. If I miss a day on the forums, I’ve missed a day with my friends.

Thank you all!

Happy gardening,
Cameron

Colorful Coneflower (echinacea) Comments



Update July 2008: Best performer is echinacea 'Ruby Star' with great blooms and a long bloom season. Only one 'Harvest Moon' survived the drought and winter. Echinacea 'Sundown' survived and looked fine for a long bloom season. 'Sunset' did not survive.


When I decided to “garden outside the fence” this year, I was challenged to plan a garden that would be colorful while being deer-resistant and drought-tolerant. I was skeptical about using coneflowers (echinacea) as some consider those to be deer food. However, I found an equal number of sources that put these on the deer-resistant list. Since I love research and experimentation, I decided to test the new coneflowers for myself for both color and deer-resistance.

Whatever the color, butterflies, bees and birds all love coneflowers. I found a few nips of early buds by either deer or rabbits, but the damage has been so minimal that I’m glad I planted lots of coneflowers. At this point, if the critters want to come out and help me deadhead in the 90-100 degree weather, I would welcome their assistance! I try to leave the last fall blooms on the stalks to help feed the birds in winter. The coneflowers are planted in the company of known deer-resistant perennials/shrubs/grasses/herbs such as: agastache, verbena, coreopsis, salvia, fennel, miscanthus, vitex, clumping bamboo and crocosmia. It may be that the scent of these other plantings reduced the damage to the coneflowers. This morning, I noticed deer tracks throughout the garden, but they did not touch the coneflowers.

As for care, these coneflowers receive minimal watering from me. I deadhead as needed to promote more blooms. All of the varieties have produced bushy plants with lots of blooms, especially considering that this is the first season in my garden.

Please see the slideshow at the bottom of my blog for photos of the coneflowers.

Orange echinacea (2 patented varieties)

I was really impressed with the color when the orange coneflower varieties first bloomed. The colors will remind you of a gorgeous sunset or sundown. However, the more I left the flowers on the stems, the more faded they looked and the more they resembled purple coneflowers. But, the orange hues lasted long enough that I felt satisfied with the color combinations. These look wonderful with blue agastache or purple verbena. Whereas, I’ve found purple coneflowers to handle extra moisture just fine, these orange varieties got a bit of powdery mildew if they were in the high-moisture areas of my garden.

Yellow echinacea (1 patented variety)

I love the new soft yellow coneflowers for the color, the bloom size and the shape. The color is like a moon at harvest. The blooms are stunning and hold color very well. However, they really don’t like extra water. At one point, we received a lot of rain and all of the yellows planted where the soil drains really well, turned black, so I’ve cut them back to the ground. I think I’ll have to put these in the ‘plant like lavender’ care section of the garden. I had planted them with daylilies (inside the cottage fence)and while the colors were great, the moisture needs are too different. In the outer deer-resistant garden, I planted these with yellow coreopsis and snapdragons in front of blue buddleia.

Ruby echinacea

Echinacea purpurea 'Ruby Star (Rubinstern)' are my favorites! They perform well in moist soil or up on the slope in the drier areas. The color is true throughout the bloom season. The colors are so vibrant and the blooms are huge. These look so great with spirea ‘neon flash’ or agastache ‘red fortune’ of the same color blooms. I also have some coreopsis colors in my garden that would look great at the feet of these tall perennials. Rose thyme would be another magenta color combo. Or combine the rubies with blue-purple perennials like heliotropium amplexicaule or eupatorium coelestinum. The rubies are magenta enough to look fine with yellow. I don’t think I’d put these with orange unless the orange matches the color of the huge cones.


Please comment on your experiences with colorful coneflowers!

Happy Gardening!
Cameron

Butterfly Garden: Monarch Butterfly Update

News: Just got our garden certified as a Monarch Waystation by Monarch Watch! Learn more by visiting their website http://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations/

This is a quick update on the Monarchs. We now have 9 more Monarch cats (caterpillars) in our garden. This time they are on the swamp milkweed (asclepias incarnata), even though it isn’t blooming. The asclepias tuberosa was shown in previous reports on Monarch cats in the garden. I never thought that cats were cute until now! :-)

All of our milkweed was planted this spring, so we are thrilled with the response from the Monarchs. It was difficult to find milkweed for sale in my area as it is very late to emerge from the ground. If you plant it, make sure you mark the spot this fall so you won't accidentally dig it up next spring.


I have found it very difficult to photograph a Monarch butterfly. Seldom do they sit on a plant with their wings open. They flit about a lot more than the swallowtails, so I find myself chasing them around with my camera! I managed to snap one photo (after lots of blurry attempts) of one sitting on the blue agastache in the butterfly garden. The buddleia varieties and the lantana continue to be big favorites for all of the butterflies.



I’m still watching the bronze fennel to see if we’ll have Swallowtail cats!

Happy butterfly gardening!

Please see the new slideshow feature at the bottom of the page...

Combinations of Color in My North Carolina Garden


We’re always looking for inspiration for great color combinations in the garden. The color palette should reflect the personal taste of the gardener. To me, one of the biggest challenges with color combinations is finding perennials that bloom at the same time. I believe this is why annuals are so popular – they bloom together all summer long. If I can’t have blooms, I try to bring in color with foliage plants. In a new garden like ours, we have allowed spacing between the perennials to allow for future growth. As such, it can be difficult to get the full effect (especially in photos) of a color combination for a few years.

I’ve seen gardens of others with jaw-dropping color combinations that I can only dream to replicate! Here, growing in my North Carolina garden, these are my favorites for 2007.

In the spring, our lavender and dianthus (cottage pinks) bloomed at the same time. The purple lavender and pale pink blooms lasted for weeks and weeks. The spicy fragrance of the dianthus permeates the garden when grown en masse. The lavender blooms and foliage provides a soothing fragrance. So, I consider this duo to be my #1 color (and fragrance) combination for our spring garden. When these two are not in bloom, the foliage is still beautiful. I shear both with the hedge trimmer after the blooming is finished and within a week or so of new growth, they look lush. These two also stand up well in our hot summers, yet the blue-grey foliage provides a cool look in the garden. I like purple-red foliage next to these, such as a purple heuchera (coral bells). Lamb’s ear is a fuzzy silver foliage plant that also looks great with these two. Actually, it’s hard to find a color that doesn’t go well with the foliage. I give the dianthus a little more water than the lavender, but otherwise, I consider them to be easy-keepers. We have found the dianthus to be uprooted by either deer or bunnies when it’s located outside our cottage garden fence.


For big impact, think big plants. This is the first season that I’ve tried elephant ears. I selected colocasia esculenta fontanesii to plant on the sunny side of a magnolia virginiana (sweet bay magnolia). The big ears work so well with the magnolia, but I wanted some color. The mauve veins and hue of the stalks in the ears seemed to be the color to bring out. I planted buddleia ‘pink delight’ and a monarda (bee balm) of the same mauve color. In the shade of the ears, I planted heuchera with burgundy and amber foliage. This is my #2 choice of favorite combinations. We have drip irrigation around these plants. Other than deadheading the bee balm and butterfly bush, there is little maintenance. I fertilize the elephant ears whenever I fertilize the brugmansias and cannas in the garden.


For combining colorful foliage with colorful blooms, I have a tie for my #3 favorite, but one is in the blue family and one is in the red family. A Moench aster combined with purple sage is just glorious. I have to go look at this combination at least twice a day! Purple hypericum (a shrubby St. Johns Wort) growing alongside coreopsis ‘Heaven’s Gate’ is the tie for stunning colorful foliage and blooming perennials. The hypericum has some small yellow blooms, but mostly it’s a foliage plant that looks the same all season. The asters start blooming in July and bloom until frost. The coreopsis started blooming in June and with shearing, will repeat until frost.

I’d love to hear comments about the favorite color combinations in your garden!

Happy Gardening!

Butterflies: beauties in the garden

In the 100+ degree heat about the only movement in the garden comes from all the butterflies.
The swallowtails, monarchs and varieties unknown to me are literally swarming over the garden. This spring, we planted a butterfly garden of hot colors. While the garden needs to mature to look lush, it did not disappoint in terms of attracting the butterflies.

We planted both host and nectar plants.

The host plants become the homes of the caterpillars that turn into these beautiful butterflies. We didn’t think we’d attract monarchs the first season, but we did! We were so excited to see monarch cats on the milkweed (asclepias). So far, we’ve not seen any swallowtail cats on the bronze fennel, but there are more swallowtails in the garden than another other variety.

We are using a shallow birdbath on the ground as a butterfly water source. We have moistened sand and water in the bath. In this heat, it requires daily refilling to keep the sand moist and water available.

The butterflies seem to spend the most time on the butterfly bushes (buddleia) that are throughout our garden.The lantana seems to always be covered with lots of varieties of butterflies. The pentas, annuals for our area, work well for butterflies, but the deer (or rabbits?) are keeping the blooms off of ours. Perennials that serve as good nectar plants include agastache, asters, coneflowers, coreopsis, crocosmia, lavender, phlox, rosemary, rudbeckia, salvia and verbena.

Happy Gardening!









The 3 Dreads: Drought, Deer and Disease

So many stories of disappointment from gardening friends prompted me to address the three big dreads of gardening – drought, deer and disease. We all begin the garden season with high hopes of beautiful blooms, lush foliage and great design only to watch as perennials and shrubs fall victim to these three big dreads. What perennials and shrubs flourish throughout the growing season with minimal effort to defend them from the three dreads? Can we have beautiful gardens that also resist these dreads? Observing my garden, I’ve made my list of winners for the Triangle area, zone 7, of North Carolina. Some of these winners may work in other zones as well. I’m listing only my favorites and only those plants which are growing in our garden that meet all three criteria of resistance to these three dreads.

Drought-resistant: these plants can survive without water if we go on a two week summer vacation. There are no irrigation drip hoses among these plants in our garden. In fact, about the only problem you’ll have with these plants is if you over-water them! All can take direct sunlight most of the day. My garden receives sunlight from the east, south and west with no shade.

Deer-resistant: the deer haven’t eaten the foliage or the blooms in our garden. There is a large herd of deer that traverse and live on our property. They are so bold as to hang around during the midday hours as well as sleeping in our meadow at night. The herd seems to increase by 3-4 fawns per year, based upon those observed together on our property. There is currently a herd of six bucks, all of the same age, with four point antlers roaming around. The largest count that we made at one time (2 years ago) was 17! I’ve now removed the edging that used to be around the newly planted garden as the plants are established. The deer had started jumping over the edging and munching just a few plants – some lobelia blooms, a taste of ageratum houstonian and as many of the leaves as possible on the seven-son shrub.

Disease-resistant: we’ve not had any problems with disease on our plants in our environment. Additionally, none of these plants were damaged by the Japanese Beetles that plague our property and devour the cherry trees, roses and the shrub crepe myrtle. If not for the beetles, I would have put crepe myrtle on this list as I put disease and insect damage in the same category.

With these selections, I’ve found lots of long-blooming color as well as the added attraction for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. You can use this list to create a butterfly garden! Most ornamental grasses and herbs also work well in resisting the three dreads. In fact, some of these perennials will fall into the herbal category.

Agastache

Hummingbird mint is a real trooper in my garden. As the name implies, the hummingbirds are attracted to this perennial. I’m most fond of ‘Red Fortune’ as it is tall and upright, full, and a prolific bloomer. The rosy color works well with blues or yellows. Just brushing up against the foliage, you will smell the wonderful mint leave fragrance. I also have ‘Blue Fortune’ and ‘Apricot Sprite’.

Buddleia

While being easy to maintain with cutting back in late winter and deadheading in the summer, our butterfly bushes are currently covered with swarms of butterflies and bees. I love the ‘Pink Delight’, ‘Royal Profusion’, and ‘Adonis Blue’ which are growing in my garden. I also have a pale yellow variety that is quite lovely, but doesn’t make as big a statement as the bolder colors. Give some of these varieties lots of room as they can grow quite large unless you get one of the smaller varieties like ‘Adonis Blue’.

Caryopteris

I’ve only recently discovered the blue mist spirea (sometimes called bluebeard) shrub and have two varieties in the garden. The variegated caryopteris divaricata ‘Snow Fairy’ provides beautiful pure white and bright green foliage with blue flowers in late summer. The foliage looks great in the company of red blooms of companion plants. The almost chartreuse foliage of caryopteris icana ‘Jason’ is a full and lush 3x3 sentinel by our garden gate. The blue blooms attract bees and butterflies, too. Cut back like a perennial.

Coreopsis

When it comes to non-stop blooms, ‘Crème Brulee’ is my favorite among the coreopsis varieties. The yellow blooms go on forever. My other yellow favorite is ‘Moonbeam’. Coreopsis emerges late, so don’t expect results until summer is in full force. Then, enjoy. After the second bloom, I use my cordless hedge trimmer to deadhead as there are just so many blooms. I also have ‘Heaven’s Gate’ and ‘Limerock Ruby’ in the mauve and maroon color range. However well they bloom, they do fall over a bit due to the height of the stems and weight of all those blooms. I may trim these back early next year to try to get sturdier stems.

Heliotropium amplexicaule

Creeping heliotrope is blue-lavender perennial that blooms non-stop for us and spreads quickly as a flowering groundcover. The flower color goes with so many other blooms. This is another butterfly favorite.

Lantana

Whether you choose the annual, the tender or hardy perennial, this plant is really tough and blooms profusely. We have ‘Miss Huff’ which grows like a shrub for us. It’s very late to emerge from dormancy, but then it grows very fast and blooms throughout the summer until frost. The butterflies literally swarm this plant!

Lavender

Although some may argue that lavender is difficult, I’ve found it to flourish if planted high and dry (see my previous blog on growing lavender).

Nepeta x faassenii

If all else fails, grow nepeta! We grow both ‘Walker’s Low’ and ‘Six Hills Giant’ in our garden. We use it as a border plant along our sidewalks and paths. Give these catmints at least three feet of space. We use hedge trimmers after each bloom to shape it and keep it looking good for reblooming. This is a favorite for honey bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

Oregano

Whether using the ornamental or the culinary varieties, oregano makes great filler for bare spots. While it’s not going to give you lots of bloom color, the foliage is wonderful.

Ornamental grasses

Choose from a wide variety of ornamental grasses. I tend to favor miscanthus and panicum varieties. Fountains of grasses that move in the breeze add so much to the perennial gardens. I also love to see the morning light coming through from the back of the grasses.

Rosemary

Another herb for planting high and dry, rosemary provides beautiful aromatic foliage and some varieties have tiny pale blue blooms. We have rosemary scattered throughout the garden and some close by the kitchen for use in recipes. Rosemary is evergreen for us and can grow very shrub-like and tall, depending upon the variety. If you don’t cook enough to keep the tops trimmed, use a hedge trimmer to shape it and keep it from getting woody in the middle (much like growing lavender).

Salvia

Although we have many types of salvia in the garden, my favorite is a tender perennial Salvia greggii 'Navajo Bright Red'. The hummingbirds absolutely love this salvia! It blooms early and will rebloom with deadheading. It grows to 30 inches tall and is evergreen in our sunny winter garden. We have a mass planting of five on a slope accompanied by yellow coreopsis.

Stachys

We grow the fuzzy stachys byzantina (lamb’s ears) as an edging and companion with lavender or nepeta. All of the fuzzy lamb’s ears, whether the small or large leaved varieties, work well in the hot, deer-resistant gardens. Again, about the only enemy is over-watering, so plant this one high and dry. A favorite foliage plant that is very reliable and so soft to the touch! If children visit your garden, this plant is a teddy bear!

Thyme
There are both culinary and ornamental thyme varieties to provide colorful foliage and even little blooms. In our garden, thyme is a fast-growing groundcover. Another favorite for bees, you can always find a sunny, dry spot for this herb. I’ve seen photos of thyme used in lieu of grass in a drought area.

Verbena

We grow stick verbena bonariensis for the goldfinches that live on our property, but the purple blooms and tall, airy structure are very attractive in the butterfly garden. We leave the seed heads as food for the finches, but it will also seed across the garden so you’ll have volunteers popping up the next spring. Since it’s tall and narrow, it doesn’t really interfere with other plants, so we let it seed freely. We have planted stick verbena in a mass of at least seven plants. We use ‘Homestead Purple’ the groundcover verbena, around the feet and also around other shrubs in the butterfly garden.