The winter garden

It always makes me a little sad when all the outdoor Christmas lights are put away for the year.  The yard seems bare and plain.  It was sunny and warmer today (above zero!) so I took a walk around the yard and realized that it's full of interesting sights.  Not the bling of Christmas lights, but still beautiful.  Of course it is - I planned it that way!

We in Wisconsin only have five or six months to spend out in our yards.  The rest of the year, the garden can still be enjoyed from the window.  It takes some of the dreariness out of winter days to look out and see something besides solid white. But it takes some planning when it's warm to set your landscape up with winter interest.  This spring, in addition to picking out new plants to try and arranging pots on the deck, think about what you'd like to see out your windows in winter 2016.  Here are some things you might want add to your landscape so that next winter you'll enjoy your yard for all 12 months.

Garden art is instant color and form.  Gazing balls come in so many gorgeous colors.  I want them all!  Bottle trees add a pop of cheerful color.  Unpainted metal sculptures are a more subtle focal point.

This is a driftwood "sculpture".

Sturdy vines like this trumpet vine have a sculptural form in winter.

This crane gets lost amid the summer foliage.  I forget he's there until winter.

A sundial makes an interesting focal point.

Cement scupltures hold up well in our harsh weather.

Not all grasses are hardy in our winters.  Check before you buy.

There are lots of  landscape plants you can enjoy year-round.  If you don't have any hardy tall grasses in your garden, you need some! Plant them in the front yard where you'll see them waving in the wind every time you leave your house or come home.

      

     

River birches look great in winter.  The peeling bark is more apparent when the leaves have fallen.

When you're cleaning up your garden in fall, leave some sturdy perennials standing. 

The flower heads of coneflower and hydrangeas will look good until spring.

If you want to see something green in winter (besides conifers) plant holly or yucca.

For some color, yellow and redtwig dogwoods stand out in the snow.

For subtle winter beauty, add some rock to your garden.  I love how the snow drapes over our rock retaining walls.

  

I didn't notice that I forgot to bring this little guy inside for the winter until I wondered what that thing was sticking out of the snow.  He's going to be upset!

One last harvest

There isn't much left to harvest from the vegetable garden.  The tomatoes, peppers, and beans are about done.  Carrots and kohlrabis are still going.  But there is one thing I've been waiting for and I think I'll harvest them this week - mini pumpkins!

These are actually edible pumpkins, not the gourds that look like mini pumpkins.  They're about 3"x 2".  

All three of these varieties came in one package called Harvest Blend.  The varieties are Bumpkin (orange), Gooligan (white), and Hooligan (orange & white mottled).  I just got the seed package out and read the back again.  I hadn't read it carefully when I planted, so I missed the line that says that these can sprawl just as far as larger varieties.  Oops!  That explains why they went over the fence, across the path, and into the lawn.  That will teach me to read seed packages more carefully.  I will definitely plant these again next year, but not in the vegetable garden.  They sprawled over the carrots and basil, blocking out the sun.  They were garden bullies and will not be allowed back into the playground next year. They probably don't need to be in the fenced-in area.  The back of the flower garden is a good spot for them.  They can have all the room they want.  I don't think deer or rabbits would be interested in them.  I saw a front yard garden yesterday that included full-sized pumpkins growing among the flowers.  What a great idea!  It was really eye-catching.  In a cottage-style garden they could wander wherever they want to.  I'll be trying that next year.  

It's raining today, so I'll have to wait to harvest them.  When I do, I'll report back on how many pumpkins I got from my four plants. 

Reseeders

Even though I am a perennial gardener, I am very happy to have annuals in my garden too.  They provide weeks or months of color with zero effort on my part.  I don't even have to plant them!  I'm not talking about flats of impatiens or petunias.  I mean the plants that seed themselves.  Here is one of my favorites, moss roses.

                               

I didn't plant any of these.  They just reseed year after year from a flat of moss roses I bought over ten years ago.  They grow in the lime sand between the patio stones.

Here's another reseeder I really like.  I got some of this from my mom years ago, and it just keeps moving around my yard, wherever the wind blows the seeds.

Verbena bonariensis

Nothing comes in as many different colors as snapdragons do.  That's what I love about them - you never know what color each plant will turn out to be when they bloom. And you never know where they are going to show up.  I even have a snapdragon blooming up in my window box this year! This is another annual that I brought home in a flat many years ago and now have forever.

snapdragons

 Sea holly is an unusual plant.  The stems are the same blue-purple as the flowers.  People who see it in my garden often ask what it is.  

sea holly

This patch of calendula is pretty much done blooming now, but it was a sea of yellow and gold flowers all summer.  My parents gave me a few plants years ago and it reseeds itself.

calendula

There are many other plants that reseed:blanket flower, rose campion, gaura, and poppies.   I even have blue fescue and Autumn Joy sedum in the crevices of the rocks in our terraces. This look isn't for everyone.  It's definitely cottage garden style.  If you put down a thick layer of mulch, you won't get as much reseeding.  And if you like your landscape neat and tidy with each plant staying put, reseeders will drive you crazy.  But if you like a loose, natural effect, with plants moving around and lots of colorful flowers with no planting try adding some of these.

Miss a day, you miss a lot

When I was a teacher, there was a poster in school that said something like, "Miss a day, you miss a lot."  A perennial garden is kind of like that.  You go on vacation, and it's changed when you get back.  Every time we return from one of our camping trips, we walk around the gardens to see what's new.   Yesterday I posted pictures of plants that were blooming in June and July.  I walked around with my camera today to see what's new for August.

Morning glories

Snapdragons are one of my favorite flowers.  Although they are an annual, they seem like a perennial because they reseed so reliably.  I bought a flat many years ago and I have had them in my yard ever since.  Of course I can't say where they'll show up. Gardener's surprise!

Snapdragons come in lots of  different colors.

Sea holly

Sea holly is another favorite.  It also reseeds.  The stems are the same blueish-purple as the flower!

Balloon flower

Balloon flower is also a favorite (I guess they're ALL my favorite!)  Before the blooms open, they look like tiny balloons.

Most daylilies are finishing up, but there are late varieties that are just getting going.

Trumpet vine

Mallow (zebrina)

Potentilla

Astilbe

There two have been blooming for a long time - my kind of plants!

Okay, so it's not new in August, but the coneflower still looks great!

I can't resist putting in a few new perennials every year.  Some turn out to be duds, but this pink salvia was a winner.  It's fading now.  It's been blooming for about 6 weeks and it's quadrupled in size since it was planted.
Here's another favorite annual that comes back year after year.

Moss roses

These moss roses are growing in lime sand. I didn't plant them here.  They drifted over from the garden, where they hadn't done well.  

Even perennial gardeners have a few pots of annuals.  The plant in the foreground is something I've never seen before.  It looks like a flower, but it's all leaves.  I absolutely love it, but I didn't save the tag!  If anyone recognizes it, please help.  I would like to identify it so I can get it again next year.

Summer Transition

May, June and July have come and gone.  I was so busy working in gardens that I didn't have time to write about gardening.  Business has slowed enough now to allow me to get back to doing other things again.  I've even taken some time to work in my own sadly neglected garden. 

 Because I was in it so seldom this summer, the shift in blooms seemed dramatic.  One day there was iris all over. The next time I was free to enjoy a garden walk, iris was replaced by bee balm and daylilies. That's what I love about perennial gardens - the slow evolution of shapes and colors between spring and fall.

These are some of the things that were blooming in June.

  

                   

          

Some of these plants were just starting in June and are still blooming - the catmint, blanket flower, and honeysuckle vine.  The peonies and orange poppies come and go so quickly, that you could miss them!

Here is what the garden had to show in July.

                 

              

Speaking of plants that have a long bloom time, shrub roses are it!  I have pink, coral, orange, white, yellow, and red shrub roses.  They bloom all the way through fall.  Asiatic lilies, oriental lilies, yucca and daylilies are dramatic, but they won't be there for you all summer like shrub roses. Tomorrow I'll go out and see what's blooming in August.