A Cool Morning Trip With Piet Oudolf

It is probably my fifth time going through Piet Oudolf's book Designing With Plants, and each time I find the philosophy overwhelming but I am determined to master it.  I read it all the way up to Wisconsin and even fielded questions from my husband on what it meant to have a plan that didn't look like a plan.

I have tried Dianthus Firewitch at my home with no luck.  It does just great in Wisconsin, don't know why because the temps are not that different but the air sure is, very little pollution and cooler evenings.

Roy Diblik who is part owner of Northwind Perennial Farm has worked with Piet Oudolf on the Lurie Gardens in Chicago's Millennium Park.  Northwind is located in Burlington, Wisconsin which is very close to my Wisconsin home.  I have frequented Northwind many times over the years and have said before that it is the birthplace of Panicum Northwind grass, one of my favorites.  Roy does not have a degree in horticulture and grew up on a small lot in Berwyn, Illinois but he has become one of the most influential plantsman in recent history. 

Nepeta Walker's Low does great up here no splitting in the middle like mine back home in the alley garden.

I cut down Coreopsis Zagreb a few inches so that it will spread and become more bush like, more blooms.

One of the questions my husband asked was could I duplicate a Piet Oudolf garden in my small space.  I had to think about this and stated that I could definitely use his philosophy regarding repeating plants in color, form, structure and mood rather than duplicating the same plants throughout the garden. 

He did a much smaller garden at Midwest Groundcovers in St. Charles, Illinois (where I had a writers workshop in the fall) and it was very impressive.

This pathway leads up to the front door with boxwood, dianthus and daylilies.

The Knockout roses had gone crazy because we didn't come up in time to cut them back for the season.  With the unusually warm weather they had grown to five feet tall in every which way.  I had to make the hard decision to cut them back severely and possibly miss a first flush of flowers.  I did it and fertilized!

The Hidcote Lavender was very overgrown and I usually cut it back to new growth in early spring.  However, with my late arrival this year or should I say early spring this did not get accomplished.  Again, I decided to do it now!

Sedum Autumn Joy has taken over Salvia May Night, will need to move this.

Sedum Vera Jameson does great but there is one along this path that I have replaced twice, must find out what it going on in the soil.

Shasta Daisy Snowcap

This is an example of volcano mulching done by the landscaping company that takes care of the grounds.  The maple tree is stunted so there may also be a problem with the burlap and twine underneath the soil.  The University of Illinois recommends that the burlap be cut away along with the twine when a tree or shrub is planted.  Many times these products do not decompose as we are told by nurseries and landscaping companies.

Echinacea Magnus and White Swan do well in this climate.

All of the plants at this Wisconsin home require minimal amounts of water because we are not always there to take care of them.  Even the Knockout roses survive under these conditions.  I used to put in some annuals but have given up on this as they require more care than the perennials.

I won't be doing too much Piet Oudolf up north but I have incorporated some of his recommendations in regard to preferred perennials.  However, back home, I will work more with his philosophy rather than the planned garden look.

My Love Affair With Heucheras

Coral Bells, does anyone even remember this name?  As far as I am concerned I am glad it is gone.  I can't tell you how many coral bell plants I purchased only to see them disappear or pop out of the ground during our harsh winters.  The delicate little leaves, spindly flowers and lack of vigor stopped me from using them in my landscape many years ago.

Voila!  The heucheras came into being with an explosion of large leafed villosa hybrids that withstand our winters, take a good amount of sun and delight us with their unusual colors.  I know there are some who do not like the carmels, citronelles, chocolates, mochas and so on.  But, I for one, say hurrah!  We finally have heucheras that blend into our environments, with bright green groundcovers, tan grasses, prairies, fall leaf colors, etc.

Heucheras - Not Like They Used To Be!

I really do like Heucheras, mostly from the Villosa strain.  I did grow them many years ago and was never impressed by their leaves or flower display.  However, with the cross breeding they have done in the past few years, they are spectacular!

I began with Heuchera Villosa Purpurea, a large dark Heuchera with white bridal type flowers.  It was wonderful, but I kept losing them after the winter.  After several replacements, I began putting in some of the more recent hybrids like, Brownie and Mocha.  They blend well with Purpurea but are not as large and certainly do not have the same presence.

I have also added Raspberry Ice, Georgia Peach (gorgeous already) and Southern Comfort.  I have had Plum Pudding for several years but it hasn't done much.  They look especially beautiful with ferns, Japanese Painted Fern, and ground covers, mine is Lirope Spicata.

Heucheras do well in containers withstanding the cool temperatures of the spring and fall and even the heat of summer.  Their leaf color is as beautiful rivaling most flowers.  The newer varieties will grow beautifully in the shade or sun.

Ghost Fern Versus Japanese Painted Fern

The Japanese Painted Fern (Athyrium niponicum pictum) is one of the most colorful ferns in the garden, gray-green, burgundy, green, always noticeable and adaptable.  I have a colony of  them under my Chanticleer Pear Tree along with Huchera Villosa, Lirope Spicata and Astrantia Lars Major (Masterwort).  They unfurl about the time my early bulbs have finished, and continue sending up new fronds throughout the summer season.  They will take a good amount of morning sun filtered by the leaves of the pear tree.

Last year I found a new fern that grew taller with less spread.  It was called the Ghost Fern (Athyrium 'Ghost') and literature was touting it as a companion for the Japanese Painted Fern.  I didn't want it as a companion but needed it to come up behind my Rhododendrums interspersed with August Moon and Halcyon hosta.  My tag said it would grow to three feet, although I am getting mixed messages from some of the descriptions out there.  It has more gray-green no burgundy and I really do not see them as being alike in any way.  They grow narrow and tall not broad and spreading.

At the symposium I attended last week the Perennials in Focus group was concerned that people would not purchase it because it was so similar to Japanese Painted Fern.  I didn't have an opportunity to tell them that after I purchased the first few I could no longer find it at Home Depot and had to go to my high-end nursery and pay double to fill in my plan.  It is obviously more popular than they realized!

"Max Frei" Geranium

I was asked by a fellow blogger the other day if I had any geraniums that seeded all over the place.  Well, I do, it is Max.  I find him in many different areas of the garden some quite far away from where he was first planted.  At first I was quite shocked because I thought I had planted this beautiful little mound of magenta flowers, and now he has morphed into a much more leggy variety of himself.

My first impulse was to yank every bit of this alien that I could find.  But, I restrained myself and watched his offspring grow throughout the seasons.  They sported flowers that looked identical to Max's but their growth was much more sprawling.  I found I could live with it, and cut them back if they became too untamed.

Max Frei is a lovely little geranium, growing in mounds throughout the spring, summer and fall.  It is flush with magenta flowers in the spring and can be lightly trimmed to keep a pleasing shape.   This trimming can be done more than once during the seasons producing a limited display up until frost.  It is not a rival to Rozanne but is perfect along a walkway as it never becomes out of bounds.

More Geraniums!

I am not sure geraniums like to move.  Six years ago I moved Geranium Magnificum and Geranium Sanguinimum Lancastriense Striatum, three of each to my present home.  They each came up the following year, and I thought yeah!, they've made it.  However, for the past several years they are languishing, putting out a few flowers and then going to sleep for the season.  I even moved Magnificum again last year thinking it didn't like where it was.  It had no flowers last year, but I left it alone planted in between Rozanne.  It is supposed to bloom earlier than Rozanne and it is much taller, so I thought it would be a good pairing.

Magnificum did beautifully at my previous home, short bloom time but really spectacular flowers and wonderful red foliage (if cut back hard after blooming) in the fall.  Lancastrriense Striatum is low and ground hugging with beautiful pink flowers blooming throughout the spring and summer.  It is very restrained and contained, no weaving, no mounding acting more like a groundcover.  It seems to have taken but certainly not not growing by leaps and bounds.  It is not happy!  These are both wonderful geraniums, highly recommended but not flourishing at my home.

I think it is important to note that no matter how much we think we know about plants we cannot always understand how to make them happy.  I will try again this year, or maybe they will suprise me and finally accept their new home!

Is "Rozanne" A Winner For You?

This will be the fourth season for the Rozanne Perennial Geranium in my garden.  On the recommendation of a friend and a garden designer, I purchased three of them at a high-end nursery (they were the only one locally that carried this variety).  They were expensive about $20.00 each and bloomed beautifully the first year weaving through my impatiens.  I cannot remember what type of winter we had that year but only one came back and my friend lost all three of her Rozannes.  I guess it was a good thing that we both purchased them at this high-end nursery because they replaced all of our geraniums free of charge!

I planted my new ones a little higher on the edge of the bed because I thought maybe they became too wet.  They all came back the following year (very slow to show in the spring) and bloomed throughout three seasons.  Two years later, it was named The Plant of the Year for 2008.  The Rozannes I purchased last year for my daughter's garden were $7.99 at Home Depot.

Rozanne has been around quite awhile developed in Donald and Rozanne Waterer's garden in Somerset, England (1990).  It was introduced to the public in 2000 at the Chelsea Flower Show in England.

Even though Rozanne and I had a bit of a rocky start, it is certainly a winner in my garden for its heat tolerance its weaving nature and the fact that it blooms continually through three seasons.

An Almost Perfect Phlox

Blue Paradise, it sounds perfect doesn't it?  We would all like a little bit of paradise right now!  Phlox was very popular around the turn of the century but from the 1940's to the 1980's it fell out of favor for being too old fashioned.  Many of the cultivars were lost and nurseries and breeders have been trying ever since to bring back even better phlox varieties.

In 1990 Piet Oudolf introduced Blue Paradise Phlox, a native plant from the New England area, thrives in zones 4-8, up to four feet tall and mildew resistant.  It is a striking blue color and has a wonderful fragrance.  I have several locations of Blue Paradise Phlox, mostly peeking out or through other plantings, such as my Knockout Roses and Becky Shasta Daisies.  Blue Paradise blooms non-stop from June through October.  The more you deadhead, the more it blooms, more prolifically than any other phlox in my garden. including David.

It is a preferred plant at Millennium Park in Downtown Chicago and it is certainly a preferred plant in my garden!

Echinacea "Art's Pride" (Orange Meadowbrite) and Mango Meadowbrite

I purchased Art's Pride about six years ago as a new introduction by the Chicago Botanic Garden.  They were named after Art Nolan who was the director of a large foundation which contributed funds to Dr. Jim Ault who bred Art's Pride.

I ordered them online because they were not readily available in the garden centers.  I ordered  three bareroot plants and put them by the side of my cedar shed the, site of my mini cottage garden, which borders my raised bed vegetable garden.

I was very disappointed when they bloomed and I saw two Art's Pride next to each other and then this yellow speciman which looked just like the orange flowers but yellow!. 

I guess I could have complained to the online nursery, but I decided to investigate what this plant might be.  As I read about Art's Pride I found out that sometimes this Echinacea produces a sport, and guess what, this sport is Mango Meadowbrite.  I kept all three, one Art's Pride succumed after a couple of years, so I am left with one Art's Pride and one Mango.  They are not as sturdy or as upright as other Echinaceas but I have come to love them for their whispy nature.  They are perfect in this casual farm-like area.

Subsequent to the development of these two unusually colored Echinaceas there have been many more orange and yellow varieties, i.e., Sunset, Sundown, Sunrise, Harvest Moon, etc.

Even after all of these years the Meadowbrites are difficult to find.  I have never seen them at Home Depot.  However, they are still available online.

A Peony That Stands Alone

One of my favorite childhood memories was helping my aunt cut the peonies that lined a narrow strip in our backyard.  I have a picture of my eighth grade graduation with a huge bouquet of peonies in my hands.  The aroma of peonies is overwhelming but to me never offensive. I had peonies at my last house that I had to put in cages or they were all over the ground.  So, I finally decided to try a single variety.

I purchased two Krinkled White Peonies and put them in the back of my yard.  Krinkled White is an early bloomer in May for about two weeks duration.  They are about twenty-five feet from my patio, but they pop out from among the green during the late May garden.  I am not a fan of peony soldiers (all lined up in a row),but I do like to see them peek out of a border here and there.  Because they are singles they do not require support. 

Do not cut down peony foliage (it looks very good throughout the summer season).  It can be trimmed down when the leaves fall.  Peonies do not like to be divided so they are carefree.  When planting peonies that red bud needs to be above the soil to promote flowering. If all of that flopping and caging bothers you, take a look at the single peonies.  I do miss that rose- like flowers on the old fashioned peonies, but I don't miss what they look like after a rain!

Very Impressive Perennials

Whether it's in a border, as a screening plant or the focus in a backdrop, Persicaria Polymorpha(fleeceflower) will not dissapoint.  This plant commands attention, and where I have it in a narrow border,  you cannot help saluting it. 


It is hardy down to zone three, grows five to seven feet tall and once established does not require much water.  It blooms all summer and has fall and winter interest.  Mine grows about seven feet tall, and I shared some divisions with my sister-in-law that she uses as a screen.  I am going to divide mine this spring (which I haven't done for six years) in order to keep it out of the walkway.


Phlomis Tuberosa (jerusalem sage),  grows to five feet, hardy to zone 5, is the lavendar-pink flower in front of the Persicaria.  It is a lovely tall plant, but you will need to consider placement (I since have moved it).  It flowers for a short period of time, so it is better placed with perennials that will take over for it when it's done


Helianthus Lemon Queen is a stunner in the late summer and fall garden.  It can grow to seven feet tall, but after the first couple of years and having to tie it because it is along a narrow strip, I pinch it back in May.  It then stays a more manageable height for my location.  All of these are available at http://www.diggingdog.com/
Although, I noticed that they do not have "polymorpha" listed at this time - many other varieties.