Garden Year in Review

Dianthus - name unknown

I spent this past weekend cutting down the garden. I would have done so sooner except for the rain, our Florida vacation, rain, lots of other stuff to do and the rain. Putting the garden "to bed" pretty much signifies the end of the garden season for this year. Today the high was 5C and it's going down to -2C overnight (that's 41F and 28F respectively). It's darn chilly out there now, which isn't conducive to spending many pleasurable hours in the garden.
This past year I have started following a lot of garden blogs and besides having made many new "virtual" friends, have also learned to be more attentive to how I take garden photos. Many of their blogs and photos are so outstanding, they should be winning awards!! But I just observe and attempt to imitate.
So as a finale to autumn 2012, I would like to present 15 of the pictures I am most proud of.

Peony - a gift (therefore, name unknown)

Red trillium

Daffodil 'Tahiti'

Epimedium x versicolor 'Sulphureum'

Autumn crocus - Colchicum autumnale

Violets - name unknown

Old-fashioned Bleeding Heart - Dicentra spectabilis

Parrot tulips - a gift - name unknown (maybe 'Starfighter?')

Clematis probably 'Multiblue' seen on a garden tour

A vase of Ladies Mantle, Coral bells, Euonymus, Stachys byzantium, and Columbine

Climbing Rose - New Dawn

Petunias and Browallia

Pink Gerbera daisies

Polyantha rose 'The Fairy'

Pin Oak - Quercus palustris

Thrillers, Fillers and Spillers Part 2

Last week I worked on my deck pots and containers as well as my 2 hanging baskets. Today I finished my front urns.
My favourite plants for the front door urns are Rex begonias and Caladium (which is technically an indoor plant but is fine in Canadian containers). As spillers I raided the garden and added Ajuga and Lysimachia nummuralia. Both urns have the same contents.

The larger urn in the centre of the flagstones features "Red Star Spike", Cordyline, as the thriller, Supertunia Pretty Much Picasso petunias, dark purple petunias and pink impatiens as fillers and
a spiller  - Ajuga - that is once again dug up from the garden.

This one is from a few years ago - I used Heuchera as the Thriller, Rex Begonias as the filler and Lamium (from the garden) as the spiller.

Here is a lovely one we had at work: Kong coleus, dogwood branches and Creeping Jenny as the spiller.

This particular year I used an (overly large) Cordyline spike as the Thriller, red Rex Begonias and Heuchera and Lamium as spillers.

When travelling I once snapped this interesting arrangement around Halloween time. I think all the hotel did was add small pumpkins and hydrangea to a summer container. Looks very good!

Here is an urn within a perennial bed behind a wrought iron fence.

And lastly, sometimes you can add very very simple flowers if the container itself is the star of the show.