From Cheryl’s Garden: Three Days in the Gardens

You have to smell the sweet fragrance of the fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus).  Besides the one at my house, there is one by the entrance to the parking lot at The Wreath Factory in Plymouth.  Last I looked they also had a few for sale in the garden center.

Here is the multi stem fringe tree which at maturity will be 15-20′H & W.  I saw this tree on a garden show about ten years ago and decided I had to have one.

 This dark leaved ninebark tree form is one of ten ninebarks I have in my gardens.  It is Physocarpus ‘Summer Wine’.  The light pink flowers set against the dark leaves adds some variety to the gardens.  The shrub form gets about 5-6′ tall.

This is one of the newest ninebarks and it is ’Little Devil’.  It gets about 3-4′ wide and tall.  In my garden there are three behind the pink phlox and peonies.  Another type of ninebark that I have is ‘Center Glow’. The new leaves start out golden yellow and mature to red-burgundy.  It can get 8-10′ tall.  The last type I have is ‘Coppertina’.  This one as you guessed it has copper colored leaves and get 6-8′ tall.  All of these are a great addition to your garden if you want a dark leaved flowering shrub and there are many sizes of ninebarks to select from.  All of ninebarks have wonderful shreddy bark that has winter interest in the “leafless” months.

 This perennial is Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis) and is a great addition to your shade garden.  One of the features of this plant is that the rain or dew collects as droplets on the leaves.  They look great planted in between large rocks.

Lupines are great for your cottage garden.  I added a yellow one and pink-red one this year with the purple ones I already had.  This perennial also has interesting leaves that add another dimension to the garden.  It was great having off three days to be in the gardens.  I planted the cosmos, datura, morning glory, 4 o’clocks, zinnias, sweet pea and cleome seeds that I collected last fall.  With the recent rain we had, weeding wasn’t too bad and I was able to get five gardens done.   My husband and I installed eight yards of mulch (on top of the ten yards we installed last weekend) and it is amazing how fresh and new the gardens look. Monday I went annual shopping for my containers.  This year was much easier than last year.  The night before I decided how many containers I needed, what color the container would be and where it would go.  Then I made a list of what plants I wanted in each container.  If I wasn’t sure which plant, I just wrote down size and leaf/flower color so I could decide at the garden center.  It only took 45 minutes to shop and I got a thriller, filler and spiller for each of my eleven containers.  They look great.  I also bought two more Japanese Maples for my collection.  I’ll share pictures soon.  I hope you had fun in your gardens this past weekend.