Ornamental Gardening Drawings and Photos
This 1994 "before" photo of my own home shows many problematic and unsightly elements. The one story addition, clad in barn board was unheated and did not provide much needed indoor space. A concrete sidewalk hugged the addition and did not allow for a garden against the home. The concrete patio was painted, making it slippery when wet. The ancient pear tree seen in the left side of the photo produced smallish, diseased, practically inedible pears. The ripening fruit also attracted hundreds of wasps and a voracious family of raccoons. Note in the upper right hand corner of the photo that there are power lines reaching from the house to the back lot line of the yard. Also, there are two pine trees, one in front of the patio and one on the far left of the photo that I did not think were compatible with the colonial architecture of the home.
This "after" photo shows a renovation that was completed over a period of several years. First, the former, one-story addition was torn down in favor of a larger two-story addition. The two pine trees have been removed and replaced with three Amelanchier x grandiflora, ‘Autumn Brilliance’ (Apple Service Berry) trees which offer three season interest (masses of white flowers in spring, followed by edible berries for humans and birds, and then blazing red leaves in fall). I love the trunking structure too. It’s very architectural. Also, the power lines were buried. The slippery concrete painted patio was remove and replaced with a bluestone terrace. You can't see it in this photo, but the pear tree was also removed.
Note that the Amelanchier x grandiflora, ‘Autumn Brilliance’ (Apple Service Berry) trees are in bloom in April around the patio. These trees flower before the foliage emerges. The ball-shaped plants at the base of the Apple Serviceberry tree are Buxus, ‘Green Velvet’.
The french doors on the addition to my home are surrounded with a simple, custom-built trellis. The vine is ‘Wisteria frutescens, ‘Amethyst Falls’, a type of less invasive American Wisteria. The cascading chartreuse grass in the planters is Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’, (Japanese Forest Grass). FYI: This grass is perennial in Zone 5, but, one year I left the grasses in their pots over the winter. They all died. So now, at the end of the season, I remove the grasses from their pots and plant them into the ground. In March, I dig up the grasses and replant them into their pots. I love garden maintenance, but if you have limited time, planting and re-potting this grass twice a season is not for you.
My garden is an example of the “a garden is never done” philosophy that many gardening-obsessed gardeners share. During Covid-19 April, 2020 lockdown, my husband and I installed two new boxwood parterres in the middle of our back garden. My home is a simple red brick Colonial style house. So I wanted to create more of a traditional Colonial style garden in with the house’s architecture. This meant that we first had to square off the previously softly curving beds. Colonial Williamsburg garden beds are very precisely lined up. This photo shows me removing turf grass from our previously softly rounded garden bed edges and creating straight lines. Note the Robin in the bottom middle of the photo. He was waiting for me to throw him a worm. He got pretty good at catching the worm in mid-air. Squaring off the existing perimeter beds also meant that I had to rearrange practically all of the existing plantings because some of the beds became larger and portions of some of the beds became smaller. I didn’t mind because many of my perennial plants were due to be divided and shared with friends and clients anyway.
In this photo, my husband is using twine to mark the new garden bed boundaries. He used a straight edged spade to make 1x1’ cuts into the turf so that I could easily separate the piece of turf from the ground. Then I cut off as much of the soil as I could and sent the turf off to be picked up on garbage day in lawn waste bags. A more environmentally-conscious way of getting rid of the remaining turf would have been to pile it in a corner somewhere and let it compost. Sometimes I get too much in a hurry and don’t practice what I preach. Plus, my back garden is not big so there isn’t a hidden corner where I could have piled the turf while waiting for it to compost.
After the perimeter beds were cut into their new, straighter formation, it was time to cut out the two new boxwood parterre beds. The neighbors must have been chuckling about how long it took us to get the sizing and measurements exact. Measure twice, cut once is the saying I have often heard. In our case, it was more like, measure 25 times, cut once. But the time spent measuring paid off. The beds are perfectly aligned.
My ‘Franklin’s Gem’ boxwood came from www.thetreecenter.com. The packing was very secure. It took my husband and me over 2 hours to open all the boxes and bring the plants to our back garden. We didn’t waste the cardboard boxes. I used them at my church vegetable garden as the base of bottomless raised beds to make it more difficult for weeds in the soil to grow into the raised beds.
The boxwood arrived before we had finished removing the turf grass. Next time, I’m hiring a crew.
Gardening experts recommend digging a hole as deep and about 2x as wide as the plant you will be installing. If I am dealing with heavy clay soil, I like to dig even deeper and wider than that. Then I back fill with my mom’s top secret soil amendment recipe: In a wheelbarrow, mix 1/2 composted manure, 1/2 existing soil, about 10% extra perlite and about 10% extra vermiculite. Blend together. If there are obvious large chunks of pure clay, throw them away in yard waste. Fill the hole so that the top of the root ball is even with the surface of the garden bed. Then continue filling until the installation is complete. Now for a word about composted manure: There is a product called Mushroom Compost. It’s magic stuff. Plants really respond positively when you add it to the soil. But there’s a catch…Mushroom compost contains peat from peat bogs. Peat bogs are unique habitats with a diverse range of plant and animal species. Peat bogs are the world’s largest carbon storage “facilities”. They trap far more carbon dioxide than forests. Peat moss grows by as little was 1mm per year. So when it is harvested, the CO2 it stores is released back into the atmosphere. So in my garden I am choosing to use MooNure. MooNure is a brand of composted cow manure and other natural materials. The ingredients are not listed on the label, so I checked with folks who manufacture it. They say there is no peat in it. So this will be my brand of composted animal manure from now on. There are lots of other composted manure products at garden centers. Check the ingredients list before you buy. If you care about our environment, consider going peat-free.
It was a lot of sweat equity that we put into re-designing and installing our new 2020 garden, but it kept us more happy, positive and busy during the Covid lockdown. Bees and butterflies are now frequent visitors to the 56 new plants of Nepeta, ‘Cat’s Pajamas’, so we think it was a win-win for everyone. But there was still more to do…
I wanted a mass planting of mixed varieties of Allium in the boxwood parterres. I planted the Allium bulbs in fall, 2020. You can see them blooming in this May/June, 2021 photo. I added a couple of additional varieties in fall, 2021 to extend the Allium season another week or so.
I really didn’t need to post this photo, but it’s one of my favorites that my husband took for me.
Re-organizing a garden is sort of similar to redecorating a room in your home…Once you paint the walls, you suddenly notice that you need new draperies. Once you get new draperies, the old sofa needs to go. In my garden, we installed the new and rearranged the existing garden beds, but we didn’t reconfigure the underground sprinkler system, so the turf grass didn’t survive and thrive. So we installed a new, although much smaller lawn. This time we asked Team A Professional Landscaping to lay the new lawn. This is the crew I enjoy working with most. They are detail-oriented, friendly, strong, and treat me like royalty.
This photo shows my boxwood parterre in winter, 2021-2022. I miss the flowers, of course, but at least there are interesting shapes to keep me dreaming of next spring. I planted a mass of both Snow Crocus and Giant Crocus for a March/early April bloom. My plan now is to add fall blooming crocus which will bloom in September.
My garden story is also published in Fine Gardening Magazine’s on-line format. Click on the following link to view:
https://www.finegardening.com/article/sallies-pandemic-garden-project?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_content=FG+Photo+of+the+Day&utm_medium=Newsletter&oly_enc_id=5790I9336167F3Y
I change the plants in this pedestal planter 4 times per year. This is its summer planting. The tall umbrella-like plant is Papyrus, ‘King Tut’ is an annual here. I get it from Home Depot. This combination also contains Asparagus Fern, Coleus, Creeping Jenny, Boston Fern, andtuberous Begonia.
Here’s a variation on a theme. In 2021, I substituted two different colors of Coleus and SunPatiens (instead of Tuberous Begonia). SunPatiens are a brand of Impatiens that can handle more sun. This pedestal planter receives hot western sun every day, so I have to water it every day that it doesn’t rain. Otherwise, even the SunPatiens can wilt when the temps are in the 80’s. On the left side of the planter is Strobilanthes (Persian Shield).
I’m a sucker for Delphinium. They need to be staked in my garden. Delphinium may not be for you if you mind a little extra effort.
Narcissus, ‘Thalia’ (a double, scented, late season daffodil) planted with Tulips, ‘Angelique’ (a double tulip).
Tulips are the lipsticks of the May garden. There are so many styles, varieties and colors that you will get frustrated trying to pick just one to plant in your garden. They also are loved by squirrels, at least in my garden. The squirrels like to dig up the bulb and haul it away. Not all the bulbs, but enough to notice if you have a compact garden space. The other thing that these pesky critters do is done just to create maximum irritation…one morning when I saw that the tulip flower was just about to open and I would be able to enjoy it when I returned from work at the end of the day, I noticed that the entire tulip flower had been disconnected from its stem and was sitting on the ground. We finally witnessed these little vandals at work and saw that it was the squirrels severing the flower from the stem. I definitely heard the squirrels giggling as I ran after them, screaming and scolding. I took a 10 year hiatus from planting tulips, but in a moment of weakness last fall, 2021, I ordered a beautiful double flowering mixture from White Flower Farm. This time I was ready for the squirrels first assault…I dug a trench big enough for the 36 bulbs I purchased. Then I placed the bulbs in their new trench. I covered part way with a shredded leaves and existing soil mixture. Then I laid chicken wire on top of it all. Then I added a few more inches of soil and shredded leaves. I caught the squirrels nosing around, but the chicken wire protection kept them from digging up the bulbs. Now I just have to figure out a way to keep them from nipping off the flower heads when they bloom in May, 2022. I will probably sprinkle the ground with red pepper flakes to confuse them. Stay tuned.
Two unsightly air conditioners are hiding behind this custom made fence. The materials were purchased at Home Depot.
Astilbe are the queen of my June garden. Their flower spires do not need to be staked. But they appreciate some shade and plenty of water. They will tell you if they are planted somewhere too sunny or without enough water…Their leaves will brown and curl.
This photo shows the patio window boxes in summer. They contain tuberous Begonias and Coleus. Creeping Jenny is the chartreuse trailing plant. Shutters were added to this garage wall in addition to the window boxes to create a cozier space.
Do you lament the end of the gardening season when Labor Day rolls around? Don’t. There are so many beautiful fall-blooming herbaceous perennials yet to flower. One example is fall blooming Anemone. This is Anemone x hybrida, ‘Andrea Atkinson’. It is delicate looking, but if in its happy place, can be really tough and spread nicely. I also love the button-like heads once the white petals fall off. They are planted against a Yew hedge.
This fall combination includes mums and annual salvia.
Do you ever impulse-buy Easter Lilies at the grocery store for your indoor Easter celebrations? They can be re-used in the garden once they are done blooming. Be sure to NOT cut down the yellowing flower stalk or take off any of the leaves. This is the food for next season’s flower display. Plant the lily in your garden. Full sun works best, but I have planted on the east side of a building and they have flowered beautifully. Continue to let the stalk and leaves decay without cutting it down. Once it gets good and brown, you can cut it. I have had the bulb re-flower in the same season (August). They don’t last too many seasons outdoors, but you will get a few more seasons out of them. Just note that Easter Lilies can carry a virus that won’t affect them, but could negatively affect other lily varieties, such as Oriental lilies if planted together.
Here is another simple early spring container recipe: Pansies paired with pre-cooled Hyacinth bulbs which I buy at Home Depot in very late March/very early April.
These topiaries are Rosemary. There is still room at the base for other Mediterranean style herbs such as Oregano or Sage. It is preferable to group herbs which like similar growing conditions in the same pot.
This "before" photo shows a stately brick home whose architectural beauty is covered by overgrown plantings. Note the two Yew bushes partially covering the bay window at the upper left of this photo and again in front of the other bay window on the right side of the photo. Unless judiciously clipped every season, Yew can really take over. Note also, the Maple tree on the right side of the photo. Unfortunately, Maples are very shallowly rooted. The roots of this mature tree grew into the porch steps and broke the concrete. Please don't let this happen to you. Concrete is expensive to fix!
Here is another "after" photo of the front of the home. Notice what's missing? It broke our hearts to do it, but we removed the mature Maple tree that was breaking the front porch and sidewalk concrete. We replaced the Maple with a multi-stemmed Magnolia tree, ‘Jane’. It is very small in this photo since we were working on a tight budget, but has since grown nicely.
This "after" photo shows the results after the home owners and I removed the old Yew bushes from in front of the window. Now you can see the beautiful bay window. Underneath the bay window, we planted ‘Annabelle’ Hydrangea, Dwarf Cranberrybush Viburnum, Globe Arborvitae, "Hetz Midget", and "Icy" Drift Roses. We also added six black planters filled with pink zonal geranium on the front entryway porch steps to create a more inviting welcome.
This "before" photo shows another side of the same home. Again, you see more overgrown Yew bushes, along with a Burning Bush on the right side (considered invasive in Illinois), an old Forsythia bush on the left side and lots of weeds underneath the bushes.
This "after" photo shows that the home owners and I removed the Yew, Forsythia, Burning Bush and weeds. In their place, we planted "Green Velvet" Boxwood and "Chardonnay Pearls" Deutzia. We re-used the old fashioned French Lilac bush that you see blooming in the middle of the photo. It had previously been planted nearby on the property, but was not sited correctly and was not performing well. Now you can see that it is very happily blooming in its new location. I re-use existing plants to the greatest extent possible so that nothing gets wasted. We also planted English Ivy which forms a ground cover under the bushes.
The owners of this charming farmhouse style home completely transformed this house from a two-family apartment to a single family home. But after their hard work indoors, they were still left with a front yard with practically no vegetation whatsoever. This "during" photo doesn't show it, but the entire front yard was covered with red lava rock instead of turf. Except for the tiny garden directly underneath the porch railing, there were no bushes, trees or flowers. The homeowners removed the lava rock and hurriedly seeded the entire front yard with grass. That helped, but the turf still looks a little "rough" in this photo. On the left side of this photo, you can see that I carved a new triangle shaped garden bed
I also dug a new garden bed under the living room window. Against the home, you can see "Vanilla Strawberry" Hydrangea. They can grow to about 6.5 feet tall, which works for this house because the bottom of the front window is 7 feet above ground level. To the right of the Hydrangea, I planted three "Emerald" Arborvitae of three different heights. In front of the Hydrangea, you can see five "Green Velvet" Boxwood. In front of the boxwood, are "Icy" Drift Roses which will grow to a maximum height of 1.5 feet. Finally, I top-dressed the new garden space with Scott's NatureScapes dark brown hardwood mulch.
In front of the porch, we added a "Jane" multi-stemmed Magnolia tree. Still more "Icy" and "Sweet" (pink) Drift roses are planted around the Magnolia. In fall, the front porch railing will be smothered in "Sweet Autumn" Clematis. During the garden building process, the homeowner worked hard to successfully improve the turf and added hanging baskets on the porch to provide an extra punch of color. An American flag blows in the breeze to complete the finished and much more welcoming front entryway garden.
For homeowners who want a garden to enhance their spiritual or religious life, one option is to plant a "Mary Garden". There are many plants that are named for Mary, the mother of Jesus. This drawing shows a rough concept sketch from one angle of the proposed Mary Garden that I drew for my client. One example shown of a "Mary Garden" plant is Fraises des Bois (Woodland Strawberry). In "Mary Garden" language, this is known as "Fruitful Virgin". Alchemilla mollis (Lady's Mantle) is known as "Our Lady's Mantle". Lavandula (Lavender) is known as "Flight into Egypt" or “Mary’s Drying Plant”. Buxus sempervirens (Boxwood, 'Northstar') is what we chose for the evergreen hedge. Boxwood is known as "Candelmas Greens".
This is the same "Mary Garden" space from a different viewpoint. The beautiful gateway arbor was already in place when I designed this garden scheme, but the homeowner had not yet planted a vine on it. I suggested Lonicera sempervirens, 'John Clayton'. This is a non-invasive Honeysuckle vine with gold flowers whose "Mary Garden" name is "Mary's Fingers". We also chose this climber because the homeowner is a Notre Dame University graduate and wanted gold to be part of the color scheme. Traditional "Mary Garden" colors are blue and white. Notre Dame colors are blue and gold. So ultimately all the plants we chose combined the three colors; blue, white and gold. I made sure I timed the gold and blue plants so that their peak bloom would coincide with Notre Dame football season.
This drawing shows a bird's eye view of the plants that were ultimately chosen by the homeowner from a large list of "Mary Garden" plants I provided that will do well with the light conditions of the area we were planting. I installed the garden in June, 2018, so I will post some photos as the garden grows and matures.
If you are wondering what type of work I am doing in my studies to be a certified Landscape Designer, here is one homework assignment. The client brief included requirements of a “posh” shed and greenhouse, a paved area for outdoor dining, an area to grow vegetables, a water feature and another area for casual and secluded seating. My instructor is British. She likes the concept of a garden of “rooms”. We are learning the design philosophy pioneered by John Brookes, who may have been one of the most influential garden designers/teachers of the 20th century. Note that the plan only calls out names of three types of trees. Other planting areas are just labeled “mixed planting”. The focus of this course is strictly on the layout of the spaces as opposed to naming specific plants. According to the instructor, if the layout is not strong and functional, no amount or variety of wonderful plants can overcome the deficiency of a poorly functioning and connected space.
Here is another design brief from the same course as the design shown above, which included the requirements of a separate office structure for the owner surrounded by wood decking, a paved dining area, a relaxed seating area, and a bit of lawn (the British don’t often have big lawns like we Americans do, so having any lawn area in a small garden is a luxury). This is not a fully developed plan, since my instructor is mainly concerned with getting the correct layout of the different rooms/spaces. Plants are not critical yet at this stage. But for a plant lover like me, I can’t quite let go of the importance of plants. So I included a hedge around most of the garden of pleached Hornbeam trees, underplanted with a hedge of Boxwood.
The above is another of my Garden Design class homework. We students were given a brief to design a courtyard garden that is completely surrounded by other two-story buildings. So, not a ton of light. The brief required that we have a paved dining area and one other type of hardscaping material (the British like pea gravel a lot), a fountain, a small tree in a pot as well as other areas of vegetation and a bench situated in order to enjoy watching the fountain. Again, plants are not important at this stage. Getting the hardscape materials right and making sure there is a good flow from space to space is critical. If the homework had required me to choose specific plants, I would have included a living wall, as seen on the right side of the drawing, a lot of ferns, Helleborus (Lenten Rose), giant leafed Hosta, Astilbe, Pachysandra for ground cover. All of these types of plants can handle lower light situations. .
This is one design option for a young family in the western suburbs of Chicago. (I am also working on a second version, so more on that a later date.) The 100+ year old home architectural style is Colonial Williamsburg so some of the furnishings are in the Colonial Williamsburg style. I made a garden “room” of the patio with walls made of Hydrangea paniculata, ‘Limelight’ standard tree form underplanted with Buxus, ‘Chicagoland Green’ (Boxwood). ‘Limelight’ is in bloom from July through the end of the season with very little to no maintenanceI also included two plants named for Virginia, Mertensia Virginica (Virginia Bluebells) along the garden path on the upper left side of the plan. I also chose Itea virginica, ‘Little Henry’ (Virginia Sweetspire) along the patio/house. I didn’t choose these two plants exclusively for their name (my idea of a botanical joke). I also chose them because the very large house next door has a huge footprint that causes flooding on the west side of my client’s home. Any plants that we choose for this garden corridor must be water loving or at least tolerant. Virginia Bluebells and Virginia Sweetspire are. So are the other plants on that side of the garden.
My actual drawings are very large so the lettering may not be clear enough in the photo above. So this and the next two photos are close-up views of different sections of the drawing.
Here is another close-up view of the plan. My drawings are done by hand, are to scale, and are colored with magic markers.
One type of plant that my client requested is espalier. Espalier is not a plant, but rather a technique for growing plants vertically using a fence. It is a space saver. It is also another way to achieve vertical interest in a garden. In this case, we will use a grape vine. This method involves pruning away many of the branches of whatever plant you choose. So be prepared to be ruthless in choosing which branches to keep and which to remove. This grape vine is located on the west side garden corridor of the house. The entire side and back garden is fenced.
I made this drawing for a couple who already has a lovely garden, but wanted to add spring blooming bulbs to the front garden with a yellow, white and blue color theme. I planted a combination of 1000 bulbs in fall, 2021. The garden already has mature trees, which required that many of the bulbs I chose shade-tolerant. These varieties of bulbs should do well. The black smudge at the bottom of the page is purposeful. I blacked out the couple’s name for privacy reasons.
These tiny darlings are ‘Tete-a-Tete’ featured in my drawing above that emerged in 2022. I bought them from the K. Van Bourgondien catalogue, but if you don’t get around to planting bulbs in the fall, yet still want some early spring color, you can find pre-cooled ‘Tete-a-Tete’ daffodils at Home Depot. They are more expensive than being in bulk in the fall, but in late March/early April in the Chicago area, color is hard to come by. So desperate times call for desperate measures.
This 2022 daffodil is ‘Mount Hood’ pictured in my drawing. It starts out a creamy yellow and ages to white. You can just begin to see the white emerging.
This is a design for a small front garden in Burr Ridge. The blue circles on the left indicate Agastache, ‘Blue Fortune’. Some call it Anise Hyssop. Agastache flowers and leaves are edible for humans. But the real reason I love using it, is that it attracts beneficial pollinators like flies to honey. Before I finished the installation, a Yellow Swallowtail butterfly found the newly installed plants. If you plant it, they will come.
This is the “before” photo of a deceptively large “cottage” in a Burr Ridge suburban development. The mass of green in the foreground is Euonymus fortunei (Wintercreeper). Wintercreeper is a fast growing ground cover that has its uses, but the homeowner wanted more plant diversity. So I designed a garden bed to attract beneficial pollinators and one that would collaborate with the attached cottage on the left of my client’s home. I liked many of the plants in the neighbor’s garden, so I repeated them in my client’s garden bed. Repetition in a garden results in a pleasing rhythm, in my opinion.
I retained some of the existing plant material, such as the Spirea, Siberian Iris, Black-Eyed-Susan. These attract beneficial pollinators. I had gardened for this client in her previous home’s lovely garden. My client had given me some divisions of her Allium, ‘Millennium’ from that home the season before, so I, in turn, divided that same Allium which had done so well in my and my church’s garden and gave the divisions back to her to use in her new home’s garden. One good turn deserves another. Allium, ‘Millenium’ is a beneficial pollinator magnet and is long blooming too. Another plant that I had installed in my client’s previous home is Drift Rose, ‘Popcorn’. While I couldn’t bring the exact plants from her previous home, I bough new ones and planted them in the front of the garden bed. If you haven’t gardened with roses yet because you think they are too fussy and require too much maintenance and too many chemicals, you might want to try Drift roses. They are very hardy, don’t need special chemical fertilizers in my experience, and bloom their heads off from about mid-May to frost. ‘Popcorn’ will get about 1.5’ high x 2.5’ wide eventually. They are delightfully fragrant too. The tall, single stem tree in the middle is a Dwarf Korean Lilac. Usually, you will see the shrub form of Dwarf Korean Lilac in gardens, but I wanted a plant with some height that wouldn’t completely block the entrance that would allow me to plant flowers underneath it. This fits the bill. It will bloom in May. There is also a re-blooming Dwarf Korean Lilac tree called ‘Bloomerang’. Supposedly, it blooms in May, rests in June and then blooms until frost. However, I have planted ‘Boomerang’ in two other gardens and it still hasn’t re-bloomed. So I remain underwhelmed, but not entirely without hope. Maybe ‘Boomerang’ needs to be more mature than the specimens I planted. Time will tell. I also planted one of my favorite long-blooming herbaceous perennials, Agastache, ‘Blue Fortune’ (seen in front of the neighbor’s window. Almost moments after I planted it, a Yellow Swallowtail butterfly found it and stopped for a sip of nectar. One thing to remember is that newly installed plants will look small for the first season. It really takes three full seasons for a garden to look mature. With gardening, patience is a virtue.
The inspiration for this new front garden was the family’s young daughter’s love of the color orange. I love when children get involved in the garden. I believe in getting children involved as early as possible to get them on the path to lifelong gardening. Luckily, the daughter loves orange…that was an opportunity for me to use Asclepias tuberosa (Orange Butterfly Weed) aka Milkweed. Milkweed is the only plant a female Monarch butterfly will lay her eggs on and the only plant that Monarch butterfly caterpillars will eat. If you plant 6 Milkweed plants and 6 nectar plants, you qualify to be a Monarch Way Station garden. Check out www.monarchwatch.org to find out more about the amazing Monarch butterfly and how the small steps you take in your garden can help the Monarch population, which is dwindling due to farmers’ use of RoundUp, suburban encroachment of butterfly habitat and other factors. I planted Asclepias incarnate (Swamp Milkweed) for the first time in my own garden in July, 2021. I found 3 Monarch caterpillars which I sheltered in three separate butterfly houses indoors. Two of the three emerged from their chrysalises and flew away to continue on their multi-generational journey to Mexico. I was heartbroken that I lost the third caterpillar, who died spinning his chrysalis. He may have suffered from a protozoan, fungal, bacterial or viral infection. I’m not exactly sure which it was, but boy, oh boy, the loss was traumatic for me! I consoled myself knowing that my butterfly midwife career was more successful than Mother Nature’s. Maybe one out of 100 caterpillars makes it to the butterfly stage. I am totally hooked on raising butterflies and am looking forward to raising them again in 2022.
This 2020 project was for a client who had recently installed a front garden, but found that it wasn’t quite working for her. So I “tweaked” it just a bit. I rearranged some of the plants. I only removed one type of plant, Physocarpus opulifolius (Ninebark, ‘Diablo’) that just wasn’t flourishing despite being in the correct light conditions. The client was just finishing restoring an addition to the home, which meant that the previous plantings in front of it had to be removed. We installed a simple boxwood knot garden instead in front of the addition. I chose Buxus sinica var. insularis, ‘Franklin’s Gem’ (Korean boxwood). It is not a variety I can find at garden centers around here yet. It’s more of an east coast plant. So I have to buy it from a mail order nursery (www.thetreecenter.com). It purports to be more disease-resistant vs. other types of boxwood. It also grows to a shorter height than other popular boxwood varieties. I needed that shorter height because I did not want to block the floor to ceiling windows of the new addition and I didn’t want to be “fighting” the natural inclination of other taller boxwood varieties to grow too high. I bought this same variety, 32 of them, for my own home garden. A major challenge for tweaking the garden design of this client, was the 4 Black Walnut trees planted a few feet away from my client’s home on the next-door-neighbor’s property. Black Walnut trees contain juglone, which is toxic to many plants. Every part of the tree contains juglone: the nuts, the leaves, the roots, etc. The plants that can’t stand juglone can die within weeks of being planted near a Black Walnut tree. Luckily, the plants that were already on site, proved tolerant to juglone. Hence, another reason for re-using whatever plant material I could.
This is the new knot garden using ‘Franklin’s Gem’ boxwood. It will take a few seasons for the boxwood to grow together into a solid hedge. Some landscaping services would install the plants much closer together to create a solid hedge right away. I space the boxwood so that they can grow to their maximum size. My theory is that if I squeeze them too close together, they won’t have room to grow and they will suffer as a result.
What you can’t see here is the buckets and buckets (and buckets!) of construction material that I had to remove as I dug each hole. When building new, construction crews remove the good top soil and leave a lot of construction materials behind. Then they cover over the debris with 4” at most of top soil. So when you start digging, be prepared for each hole to take longer to dig than in a good loamy soil.
Even a bird bath can become a Christmas planter simply by laying down White Pin branches and pine cones.
This was an Easter floral display I designed for my church. Spring blooming Anemone are combined with Yellow Twig Dogwood branches, Pansies and Hyacinth. The Hyacinth are pre cooled so you can buy them ready to burst into bloom in early April at Home Depot. The “bird’s nest” was woven by on of my St. Mary School student volunteers. I took some chicken eggs, dyed them blue and voila! Robin’s eggs! A word of caution…by the next morning, marauding raccoons had feasted on the eggs and they were missing from the nest. Next time, I will get faux eggs or poke holes in both ends of the eggs and blow out the contents and make sure they have plenty of time to dry out before using outdoors.
This container recipe is: Pansies, Birch logs, Red Twig Dogwood. The Birch logs can be used again and again over many years. Just store them in your garage when not in use. They will last longer. Remember to deadhead pansies so they don’t set seed. You will get more flowers if you deadhead. I re-use the Red Twig Dogwood too. I store it indoors when not in use. If it still looks red enough, I use it again. If the red color has faded, I paint the twigs with oil based white paint. There is a bit of chipping off of the paint during a particularly cruel winter, but this can be touched up to use again and again.
My clients bought a 100+ year old home and have set about lovingly and methodically restoring it. Here you can see that the previous owner wasn’t a lover of gardening and had left the one old, very gnarly French Lilac unpruned. A Hosta edging is in the front of the bed and a variety of Persicaria that is not one of the cool, new varieties with garden value that was probably planted by a bird, was allowed to become overgrown. .
On the other side of the front steps, a mature Taxus (Yew) was also allowed to get huge. I thought it overwhelmed even this large, tall house. More Hosta edging underneath the Yew didn’t seem the right thing to do.
So I drew this simple design, which oddly enough, uses Yew again. But this time, the Yews stand as welcoming sentries to friends and family who visit. Also, their growth will be kept in check with a once/year trim. I think the Yew gives the beds some muscle, but the rest of the plants offer some variety of color, leaf texture and flowers.
This is the west side of the house. Again, the previous homeowner allowed wildflowers (aka weeds in this case) to proliferate. The light green block of ground cover that you see is Aegopodium podagraria (variegated Bishop’s Weed). It’s actually quite lovely, but if you like it, you need to REALLY like it. It spreads like wildfire by seed from its umbel shaped flowers (that look a lot like Queen Anne’s Lace) and via its fleshy roots that grow every which way underground. It is very difficult to eradicate if that is your aim. I don’t like using RoundUp, but it can be helpful when circumstances call for it. However, one spray will not necessarily kill the plant. So be prepared to spray more than once or dig the plant up entirely and search for and remove all of the roots. The process can take several seasons to achieve full success. The other darker green ground cover is Violet. I love Violets in the spring, but they too, spread like wildfire. Fortunately, each plant is easy to remove. The previous homeowner used lava rock as a method to prevent weeds. It didn't really work all that well.
This drawing was just a “back of the napkin” sketch. A scale drawing wasn’t really necessary since we were just going to be scattering seeds.
Once the lava rock, Violets and Bishop’s Weed were removed we still weren’t ready to spend a lot more money on this space. The homeowner will be adding a new garage and an addition soon, so we didn’t want anything permanent or costly. A mass planting of Zinnia, ‘Benary’s Giant’, Cosmos, and Basil and Thai Basil fit the bill perfectly. We added shredded hardwood mulch to help suppress any weed seeds that came to the surface after the removal of the visible weeds was completed. This is a western exposure so it gets a lot of sun. Perfect conditions for the seeds we chose. There was so much Basil and Thai Basil that my clients couldn’t use it all. They donated a lot to Share The Harvest, an ecumenical ministry that shares home grown produce with local charity food pantries. The beneficial pollinators and the food-insecure folks who use the food pantries that Share The Harvest supplies were both the beneficiaries of my clients’ generosity. Oops…almost forgot, my clients gifted me with the most delicious pesto made from the Italian Basil. They used almonds instead of pine nuts. Now I don’t want my pesto any other way.
This Tudor revival cottage’s garden required loving care, respect and attention. One of the two delightful owners who bought this home in 2020 has extensive training and experience in the world of art history, so her request to get to learn and develop an appreciation for the existing plants in the front garden made perfect sense. We didn’t rush into a complete demolition. Instead, we embarked on a journey, starting with gardening “lessons”. The first season included pruning lessons. The Euonymus alata (aka Burning Bush) seen in its red autumnal glory in front of the porch was our first project. This fall, 2020 photo shows the Euonymus overpowering the front porch just a bit. So in spring, 2021 we sawed down the substantial trunks of the Euonymus to about 1.5’ above the ground. This can be downright scary for the uninitiated gardener. It is an exercise in hope and optimism. Luckily, Euonymus are the perfect shrub on which to practice pruning skills. These plants are really hard to kill. In fact, they are considered invasive in many states, including Illinois. If you look at the photo below taken in spring, 2021, you will see how the Euonymus grew quickly and leafed out fully.