I’m always excited when Elle Ronis sends in photos of her beautiful garden in Stamford, Connecticut. If you’ve missed previous posts, you can see some here: Flowers Big and Small and Shrubs for High-Impact, Low-Work Gardening.
In spring, an early-flowering yellow rose (possibly Rosa hugonis, Zones 5–9) combines perfectly with a showy peony (Paeonia hybrid, Zones 3–8).
A Japanese wood poppy (Glaucidium pamatum, Zones 5–7). This graceful perennial for shade blooms with these large, lavender-blue flowers in the spring, and it keeps its attractive foliage the rest of the summer. Easy to grow anywhere, it doesn’t get too hot during the summer.
Dense plantings of hydrangeas, hostas, and daylilies make a beautiful carpet of plants that fills the garden and leaves nowhere for roses to grow.
Another view of the perennial plantings. This combination would work in any lightly shaded garden, as long as you could protect the daylilies and hostas from hungry deer.
This double-flowered version of the native bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis, Zones 3–8) is a shade-loving perennial that blooms in the spring and then goes dormant in the summer. The regular form has simpler flowers that quickly fade, but this form with extra petals stays in bloom much longer. It will spread via rhizomes to make a nice clump when happy.
An amazing chrysanthemum—with a very unusual and different form to these flowers!
A large show-style chrysanthemum. Notice the ring holding the blossom. These huge show chrysanthemums require careful pruning and support to produce maximally dramatic flowers.
Another show chrysanthemum beginning to open.
Mass planting of dramatic chrysanthemums.
I have a lighting setup in my basement where I grow rare flowers. I have many plants, including 10,000 high-elevation orchids as well, in genera such as Dracula and Odontoglossums.
Have a garden you’d like to share?
Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!
To submit, send 5-10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.
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