Again Begin Again

by Heather Ford-Helgeson


A fortunate
we
who live among
seasons,
where spring arrives
to a
sold-out stadium
filled in anticipation
of its
performance.

Dappled sun through new leaves
and puddles slop over curbs
dry up
and leave mud
caked
and smelling
like
something old and new
all at once.

Birdsongs change from
caws only
to
cardinals courting
and robins
joyous in finding
fat
worms.

Grass greens within
seeming
moments
and toes
too bloom
from boots into
damp earth and
soft blades.

The sun finds
its stride
and its
heat
finally
hits
in force
and every bit
of exposed skin
tingles and
revels and
reveals
life
is
in
every
cell.

ShowSpaces - Room to play

by Jeanette T

The black-eyed susans are in full frenzy and the sunflowers are eight feet tall and blooming but everything else is slowly fading.  I am cutting more and more spent blossoms and starting to think about what plants I should leave up for winter interest.  This is a needed break in the season of gardening.  A chance to slow down and watch the last flowers as fall swings in and reminds us to hurry and finish our chores before the snow comes.

For this ShowSpaces post I decided to find the opposite of the last garden, which was cozy and packed full of plants.  Too little space can be a frustrating problem in the city but out in the suburbs the problem becomes what to do with all that space?  I thought of sharing a certain house that we have worked on for a few years that has found some creative solutions.  In gardens not immediately close to the house,  there are simple mass plantings that are attractive yet easy to maintain and still look good from a distance.  Another key is to use plants that pair together well and help each other stand out. 

The house is set back in the forest and is reached by a long driveway.  At the top of the drive way is a raised garden with boulder walls and simple plantings of grass and black-eyed susans.

In the middle of the driveway is a small bed.  There are several small trees for structure and it is planted so something is blooming throughout the season.  Peonies are the first to bloom, then comes the clematis and fall is brought in by the sedum.

In front of the house is a beautiful perennial garden with a lot of color.  To ease the transition to the stone patio, we have lined the edge with containers of bright annuals.

 

Coneflowers stand out beautifully against the soft foliage of the cypress tree.

 

 The deep autumn yellow of the black-eyed susans is complemented by the warm tones of the fall blooming grass behind it.  The background is a shady dark forest. 

 Here, mass plantings of grasses, sage and more rudbekia serve to steer the eye away from the fence surrounding the pool. 

 

 

A border of hydrangea shrubs are easy to maintain and bring some lightness to the side of the house.  In the fall and winter their dried blooms provide structure.

 

A lot of backyards run along a forest or some other wild area.  Here, we gradually transition from the more formal beds surrounding the house to less structured beds running along the perimeter.  A thick layer of mulch in front keeps the forest plants from spreading and low maintenance bee balm provides some height and color. 

In the front yard there is a large hosta garden.  Groups of large hostas give contrast to the smaller leafed hostas that line the edges.  Clumps of ferns and bleeding hearts break up the mass plantings.  From a distance, the forest foliage is echoed along the ground by the season long greenery.

 

 This yard also uses containers beautifully.  They help brighten up dull spots against the side of the house and bring color and softness to stone patios.  The above container is placed on a south facing patio that can get very dry quickly.  With that in mind, we used large containers that hold water longer, and were careful to choose plants that would do okay in hot and dry conditions.

Autumn is coming and a few accents here and there can extend the warmth and color of the beds as the rest of the flowers fade away.

Finding Hope in the Hopeless

by Tami Gallagher

My garden this year has been trying to say the least.  I have had many losses, bugs, and mishaps:


Dead Dahlia

~ One day I had beautiful magenta dahlia blooms, the next I had a completely dead plant.  Who knows.

~ My cute little tabby grass in my early spring container grew to be about four feet tall when transplanted into my sunny window box but my Kong Coleus must have been mislabeled because it isn’t so much as Kong as it is all of three inches tall.

~ I haven’t had a single ripe strawberry.  The rabbits and I both think, “Oh, that will be perfect tomorrow!” but they must get up earlier than I do so now where there used to be strawberries, I just have crunchy brown leaves.

Insects!

~ We adopted a four-month-old dog, Toby, last December and he has been wreaking havoc in all his puppy energy. He ate the cucumber plants, ran through the Hydrangea shrub destroying all the big beautiful blooms, peeled all the bark off of an Ash tree like it was a banana, broke off all the lower branches of my Japanese Lilac, and then there's all the holes... I had to give up my plan for re-designing the backyard this season. 

Blossom End Rot

~My first bag of potting soil had some grass/weed seeds in it and they of course sprouted in their new happy environment.

~The trumpet vine I removed two years ago seems to have gathered force underground last season and decided to sprout up shoots all over my garden; I'm giving up on the battle for now, but not the war!

Unwanted Grass in Potting Soil

~My Roma tomatoes have blossom-end rot.

~The Mugo pines I put in last year died.  OK, maybe I should have watered them more…

~The Sea Oat grass I put in last fall didn’t even make an effort to come back.

Dead Mugo Pine

~With the early spring, I pinched back by false indigo too late and only had two blooms.

~The kids are as bad as the dog and big portions of my dianthus were sacrificed in a neighborhood game of capture the flag.

~I have aphids on my Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, Japanese Beetles on my Basil, and squash bugs on my zucchini. The squash bugs on my zucchini were so bad, I had to pull all the plants out.    

It was the squash bugs that sent me to adding up my garden troubles this year.  With all these trials, I wondered why I keep trying.  

But I know ultimately it's because I love gardens. They bring me hope; hope for the future and that I can always do better. Every season is an opportunity to grow better and brighter. Next year I will be more vigilant, I'll cover my new fall plantings better, and I'll watch for bugs more attentively.

And Toby will be the wise old age of two.

Example of what the Gallagher Gardens look like in a good year