My Dad's Garden - Sept 2012

My dad is an excellent gardener. We have always had gorgeous gardens in all the houses we lived in because of his interest and his skill. Our favourite joke is how he was in the driveway washing the car as I came home from a friend's (I was probably about 16 yrs. old).
"How do you like my Tropicana roses?" he asked, referring to a long long stretch of brilliant coral/orange hybrid teas.
"Nice" I said, hardly glancing at them.
I'm sure he sighed then but is happy now because I am as obsessed with gardening as he is.

I asked him this past Monday if I could come over and photograph his front and backyard.
Oh, he said, you are a few weeks too late. There's really nothing left to see.

Well - I beg to differ! Sure there was probably more in June and July (and I promise I will get my act together faster next year!) but take a look at how beautiful his garden still is now.

At the curb, his bright red celosia and white lisianthus are still holding steady.

Every year, dahlias are the anchors of his front garden. He told me that he bought them all as tubers from a local horticultural plant sale so he has no tags and no names :(
But I think we can just enjoy their beauty and you could track down something similar if they prove to be favourites you are interested in.

I love how dahlias vary in texture, size and colour. He loves them and they obviously love him back, blooming like crazy so late in the season.

He patiently grows the fussy, difficult Lisianthus (Prairie Rose) from seed every year. The white ones he gave me are doing very well in my front garden. He grew some deep purple ones as well for himself.

His yellow and red Rex Begonias are still a lovely shot of colour near the front door.

A short, quiet ornamental grass (could be quaking grass - "Brizia") is happy under the living room window among the evergreens.

Years ago, my Dad picked up this flowering maple at our local horticultural society meeting. Here is what he says:

"...About the flowering maple. It has to be protected from frost. So I took it down to the basement last fall and put it under a grow light. Early spring I started to add a little liquid fertilizer to the water and it started to bloom.  More and more ! It's been blooming like crazy all summer now. So in the same pot it will go down to the basement again, I will trim it a bit and repeat my cycle…."

Here is a little yellow rose that my mother received from a friend on Mother's Day. It was planted near the back basement window and is now in bloom.

Here is an interesting type of verbena.

The yellow rex begonias are still very lush and lovely in their hanging baskets.

And his Rose of Sharon is still in bloom.

And he said there was nothing left to see - hah!!! Glad I went over to check for myself. (A big thanks for letting me share your garden with my readers, Opa).

Thrillers, Fillers and Spillers Part 1

Yesterday and today I worked on my containers on the back deck. We have a walk-out onto the deck from the kitchen through big sliding doors. It's always been important to us to see colour close up as we eat our meals or while we sit on our loungers, enjoying the last of the wine after dinner.

Years ago in Fine Gardening magazine I remember reading about the rule of thumb for interesting containers: use thrillers, fillers and spillers. In other words
(a) have a focal point - the thriller (usually tall)
(b) fill the container with medium height plants  - the filler
(c) add trailing plants at the edges - the spiller

Last year I saved the peat moss base of 2 hanging baskets along with the hardware - the rounded metal "bowl", the 4 metal chains and the hook. I bought Geraniums and Asparagus fern as the thrillers, Torenia as the filler and pink and white Verbena as well as spillers. I paid a small fortune for the fully planted hanging baskets last year but this year, by making them myself, I saved well over $50! Each!!

Over the years, I have purchased at least 4 Japanese Golden Grass plants (Hakonechloa macra), which the rabbits happily munched until the grasses disappeared. I still love this plant so much that this year,
I decided to dedicate 2 of the pots to Golden Grass alone.

The other pots have grasses or Potato Vine as the Thrillers,  a gorgeous dark new Picotee petunia called 'Pinstripe', Geraniums and Browallia as fillers and Wave Petunias, trailing Lobelia and Lysimachia nummularia (dug out from a far corner of the garden) as the spillers.

This is Pinstripe:

Some of the smaller pots have just sedum in them which I overwintered from last year. Sedum is very drought tolerant and sometimes those small pots dry out as fast as the hanging baskets.

I'm as messy a gardener as I am a cook so the deck was covered with dirt, empty pots, empty bags of soil, etc. I wonder why I didn't include a picture of the deck before I cleaned it up???
:)

(we still need to take the Christmas lights off the pergola posts - ooops!)

I'm quite pleased with the containers this year. They are colour coordinated, they have plants in them that are new to me and I will make sure they are thoroughly watered if the summer is as hot and dry as they predict.

Tomorrow I hope to do the front yard urns.