Private Garden in Burlington, ON We are heading into November, which is a bit of a grey and gloomy month. By late fall, winds have stripped the garden of most of its autumn color. Neutrals like tan, brown, grey and black carry the garden through the winter. This seems like a perfect time to be talking about the uses of grey in the garden. A grey church steeple in a garden in Rosedale, ON. Shades of grey and beige are restful colors. They are undemanding and that makes them feel calm and serene. In this pathway, grey and beige work together to great effect. Brain Folmer's garden near Walkerton, ON To break up to endless variety of green in any garden, the natural tendency is to think of foliage variegation. Grey foliage can the same job. Liz Mallcki's garden, Mississauga, ON The Harrison sister's garden in Hamilton, ON Not only does grey sing sweetly in amongst the greens, it also provides a nice foil for brighter colors. Blue Seakale, Crambe maritima in front of blue Salvia at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, ON Brain Folmer's garden near Walkerton, ON Vivid colors seem even more vibrant against a neutral backdrop. In terms of grey foliage, there are leaves splattered with grey like this Lungwart, Pulmonaria. Lost Horizons Nursery Here is the Pulmonaria in a garden (see lower left corner). (Going forward, I am trying to make a point of photographing plants in the context of a garden and not just doing close-up glamour shots.) And there are also leaves broken with grey like this Brunnera 'Jack Frost' ... or this Coral Bells, Heuchera, 'Berry Marmalade'. Here is another Heuchera to show you an example of how this plant might be used in combination with other perennials. There are also solid greys like Lamb's Ears. (And here is Lamb's Ears in a garden setting.) A lovely bonus of grey foliage is that often it has a soft, downy texture. In the next part of my grey series, I will look at some of the many grey plant options.

When anyone asks what plants I recommend for shade, my answer is hostas and coral bells. Both perennials are staples for shade gardens.

Colorful and shade are not to adjectives many people would think belong in the same sentence, but today I want to show you a front and back garden where the hom…

Colorful and shade are not to adjectives many people would think belong in the same sentence, but today I want to show you a front and back garden where the homeowner has managed to combine these two very words. Right about where I was standing when I took this picture, there was a mature tree which cast most of the front yard into shade and half-shade. Among the perennials and shrubs in the front gardenbeds, this homeowner has mixed different colored heuchera and hostas in a way that I haven't quite seen before. Though there isn't that much in flower, there is still an interesting mix of roses, burgundy, tan, lime and various shades of green. Let's take a closer look: There is a pleasing mix of leaf shapes and sizes here. There is also a really nice play of textures. Towards the back of the bed, there is the lacy leaf of a Japanese Maple, in front of that some jade green Pachysandra and then there is a mix of heuchera and hosta toward the front. Along the driveway, there is a bit more sunlight and she has added Japanese Blood Grass into the mix. (Warning: Before you add Japanese Blood Grass to your wish list for spring, be aware that it can be a bit invasive.) One more closeup to highlight the interesting mix of leaf textures. Here the gardener has combined a hosta with a pronounced striping with a hosta that is variegated. Into this mix of hostas, she has also added a heuchera with a smaller leaf and mottled colors. Now let's head into the back garden. Just inside the gate, the garden is free of tree cover. The homeowner has made the most of this small patch of sunlight. The appealing mix of textures and shapes is continued in the back garden. As we swing a bit to the left, there is an arbor that leads into a small corner nook of both half-shade (to the left) and full sun (on the right). In the right foreground, the patch of lime green is the groundcover Creeping Jenny, Lysimachi nummularia. (Again, be forewarned that Creeping Jenny can be invasive. I have a patch in the shade and the lack of sun keeps it in check, but I also have some in sunlight, and it runs wild.) On the arbor, the gardener has trained some Morning Glories. Purple Cone Flower, Echinacea, 'Pow Wow Berry' Bee Balm, Monarda, 'Grand Parade' For today, I will leave you with a small container planting of succulents. In the next post, I will pick up where we left off, and explore the shadier part of the back garden. I will also have the winner for the Unlikely Friendships book up next. I am sorry to be so slow to return everyone's visits. It has been a crazy couple of days! Yesterday, I awoke to find that the sump pump in the back basement had failed overnight and was spraying water into the basement. Imagine Niagara Falls and you pretty much have it! I waded into several inches of water when I got to the bottom of the basement stairs. Having no time to dress, imagine me in a nightgown and rubber boots bailing water into buckets, while my son carried them outside. What a picture! And of course, I couldn't get hold of my husband who had already left for work. Anyway, to make a long story short, I finally did manage to call my husband home and a new pump is installed. The basement is slowly drying out. I promise to pop around and say hi to everyone as soon as things settle further. Have a great weekend everyone!

As I sat down to write this post, I tried to think of the perfect adjective to describe Joe and the word "gentleman" sprang to mind. Joe is a gentleman in the most traditional sense of the word. Retired for a number of years now, he is a petite, shy man. He is also a serious plant collector, who weather permitting, can't wait to rush out the door each morning to work in his garden. A regular feature on garden tours and open on a number of occasions each summer, Joe's garden is probably one of the city's best known private gardens. Like so many of the gardens I share, this garden is a labour of love. There are over 6000 plants that are tended with the greatest care. As you will see, the flowerbeds are all meticulously groomed and edged with exacting precision. The drawing above is a very rough layout of the garden. Pathways take you down either side of the house and into the backyard. Right outside the back door there is a garden of roses and perennials. Just beyond that is a swimming pool and deck area. Toward the back of the property there are two symmetrical gardens with a central area of lawn in each. Then, back through a series of rose covered arches, is a potting area. Let's take a stroll, shall we, starting off on the path to the right of the garage. Astilbe chinensis var. taquetii, 'Superba': Feathery magenta pink flowers in early summer. Height: 90-120, Spread: 60-75 cm Part shade to shade. Average to moist growing conditions. Normal, sandy and clay soils are fine. USDA Zones: 3-9 For now, we will take a quick glance at the rose garden. In an upcoming post, we will come back for another look at the roses. Hydrangea 'Annabelle': Height: 1.2- 1.8 m Spread: 1.2- 1.8 m. Average to medium well-drained soil. Intolerant of drought. Blooms on new wood and should be pruned in late winter to encourage strong new growth. USDA Zones 4-9. Hydrangea 'Invincibelle Pink Annabelle': Height: 100 cm, Spread: 100 cm Sun or shade. Flowers June to September with deadheading. Musk Mallow, Malva: Full sun. Height: 45-70 cm, Spread: 45-60cm. Average growing conditions. Normal, sandy or clay soil. Satiny, single hibiscus-like flowers in early summer. Cutting back the plant in August will encourage it to over winter better and survive longer. Readily self-seeds. USDA Zones 3-9. A mix of perennials including several hosta, a Brunnera, a Heuchera and a Pulmonaria. Astrantia major 'Roma': Average to moist soil and part shade to sun are best for Astrantia. Height: 60-90 cm, Spread: 45-60, USDA Zones: 3-9 A lovely combination: European Meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria has ferny foliage and flowers similar to an Astilbe. Plants form a bushy clump with creamy-white flowers in early summer. This plant does best in moist soil in sun or part shade. Trim flowers after they bloom. Height 75-120 cm, Spread: 45-60 cm. USDA Zones 3-9 Astrantia major 'Roma': Average to moist soil and part shade to sun are best for Astrantia. Height: 60-90 cm, Spread: 45-60, USDA Zones: 3-9 Phlox Paniculata 'David's Lavender': Full sun or part shade. Height: 90-120 cm Spread: 60-75 Moist to average growing conditions are best. Sandy or clay soil. Fragrant. USDA Zones 3-9. Joe has an array of hostas that would be the envy of most gardeners. He combines them in groups and also mixes them in usual ways as he has done with these Carefree Delight Roses. Coreopsis blooms for weeks and is a great self-seeder. Variegated Japanese Knotweed, Fallopia japonicaVariegata: Joe has the free time to be vigilant with his perennials. Based on my own experiences, I would be very cautious of planting any Knotweeds! Maybe this is one plant that is best grown in a container. Morning sun or part shade. Height: 150-180 cm, Spread: 90-120 cm. Part shade. Average to moist growing conditions are best. Normal, sandy or clay soil. USDA Zones 2-9. Hosta 'Sun Power': This variety of hosta has large chartreuse to gold foliage. Height: 70-75 cm, Spread: 120-150cm. Part shade. Average to moist growing conditions are best. Normal, sandy or clay soil. USDA Zones 2-9. Phlox Paniculata 'David's Lavender': Full sun or part shade. Height: 90-100 cm Spread: 60-75. Fragrant. Average to moist growing conditions are best. Sandy or clay soil. Resistant to powdery mildew. USDA Zones 3-9. Echinacea 'Double Scoop Bubblegum': Height: 60-65 cm, Spread: 40-55 cm. Full sun. Average, dry or moist growing conditions. Normal, sandy or clay soils work. Attractive to butterflies. USDA Zones 4-9. False Mallow, Sidalcea 'Party Girl': Is a personal favourite of mine. Height: 60-90 cm, Spread: 30-45 cm. Full sun or part shade. Blooms early summer, and with deadheading, again in the fall. Average or moist growing conditions. Normal, sandy or clay soils are fine. They self-seed, but not to the point of becoming a nuisance. USDA Zones 4-9. Phlox Paniculata 'David's Lavender': Full sun or part shade. Height: 90-120 cm Spread: 60-75. Moist growing conditions are best. Sandy or clay soil. USDA Zones 3-9. Yellow Fumitory, Corydalis lutea: Height: 20-40 cm, Spread: 25-30 cm. Part to full shade. Nice ferny foliage and pretty yellow flowers from June into fall. Average to moist growing conditions. Readily self-seeds, but seedlings are easy to pull. USDA Zones: 3-9 Creeping Thyme, Thymus 'Doone Valley: Height: 5-10 cm, Spread: 30-60 cm. Full sun. Needs well-drained soil. Average to dry growing conditions. Trumpet Creeper, Campsis radocans: Trumpet Creeper can reach a height of up to 40' and can spread as much a 10'. In other words, it is a pretty aggressive vine that is hard to control. Full sun to part shade. Easily grown in moist soils. Blooms on new growth so spring pruning is not a problem. Attractive to Hummingbirds. USDA Zones: 4-9 Hybrid Mullein, Verbascum chaixii Height: 40-55 cm, Spread:3--45 cm. Full sun. Average to dry growing conditions. Well-drained normal, sandy or clay soils are fine. Plants flower for a long period and tend to exhaust themselves, so it is a good idea to take cuttings in spring to make new plants. USDA Zones: 5-9 Sneezeweed, Helenium autumnale 'Moerheim Beauty': Height: 75-100 cm, Spread: 45-60 cm. Full sun. Average to Moist growing conditions. Plant likes fertile, well-drained soil. Pinch back in June for a fuller, shorter plant. Attractive to butterflies. USDA Zones 4-9. Trumpet Lilies by the back door. This Climbing Hydrangea is only about 5 or 6 years old! Climbing Hydrangea, Hydrangea anomala petiolaris: is a large deciduous vine that can reach as much as 50 ft at maturity. In early summer this vine produces lacy, flat-topped flowers 5 inches or more in width. Shade, part shade or sun if well watered. Plant in rich, well-drained, moisture retentive soil. One drawback is they are slow growers and can take years to really get going. Once established they do grow more quickly and may need pruning in summer after they flower. USDA Zones 4-7 Here's a link to Joe's Garden Part 2 Bookmark this post with a Pin.

I think I struck a cord with my last post highlighting a small suburban shade garden. Obviously gardeners are hungry for planting suggestions for shade. In this…

This reader shares photos of his low-maintenance coral bells and hybrids featuring their fresh expanding foliage, lush colors and silvering.

So I was taking pictures of my garden yesterday and realized that most of the pictures were of plants with awesome leaves. During my career as one who mucks about in the dirt, I've come to understand just how important foliage plants are to having an attractive garden. A variety of plants with interesting leaves, including Astilboides, Lamium, Hosta, Heuchera, Aconitum, Dicentra, and some weeds :-) There are a lot of plants we grow for the flowers they produce. Unfortunately, I've learned that after the flowers are done, you're often left with an ugly, awkward mess of slowly dying leaves for the rest of the summer. (Yes, delphinium, I'm talking about you.) A flower bed filled with too many of these divas will look nice for a few glorious weeks, only to leave you with nothing much to look at for most of the summer unless you surround them with - you guessed it - plants with fabulous foliage. Hosta, bleeding hearts, and delphinium. In the picture above I have a delphinium (not yet in bloom) surrounded by hosta and bleeding hearts, which are two plants with awesome leaves that stay looking nice all summer. (The bleeding hearts have a nice added bonus of turning golden yellow in the fall.) After the delphinium blooms and starts looking like poop, I can cut it back and still have something nice to look at in that same area. So far the method of mixing my garden divas with foliage plants has worked fairly well for me. Another Hosta, Heuchera, and Lamium. Usually I don't like limey colors and silver together, but the lamium goes where it wants. I've given up trying to tell it otherwise. At least it out competes the weeds. Another Heuchera, Lamium, and Astilboides. Native fern and Cimicifuga. They both do well in the dry shade under my tree house. Another lamium. I like how this one looks with a lot of my other plants, so I'm encouraging it to spread. The silver one is far more vigorous, unfortunately. Native ferns and Alchemilla mollis. The best thing about all the plants pictured above is that they are SO EASY to take care of! I have to do very little to keep them looking nice. Add some compost and mulch in spring and cut them back in the fall. No staking, pruning, pest control, minimal deadheading, etc. They just grow and look awesome-- what more could a garden girl ask for? A variety of plants with interesting leaves. Anyone out there have a favorite plant with awesome leaves they'd like to share? Feel free to comment below!

Today's photos are from John Magee. Johns says, "These are photos of a garden I designed and built in Reston, Virginia, which is a suburb of Washington D.C. This is a small single-family home. The...

Today I thought I'd share with you what's blooming in the garden. Tomorrow I'll share with you my how I went from being a "pot of geraniums on the porch" kind of non-gardener to a having a

Upright shade plants will add contrast and excitement to any shade garden that contains a multitude of mounded plants like hostas. Here are some to try.

Learn which Hosta companion plants will look the best in your yard with lots of shade garden pictures to provide inspiration and ideas.

Meet Empress Wu

Hostas are beautiful plants for garden design and yard landscaping

Vad vore en rabatt utan fina bladkontraster? Här kommer några av mina: Carex elata `Aurea´, Heuchera och Hosta `Frances Williams´. Berberis thungbergii `Aurea´, Cimicifuga `Brunette mm mm. Minihosta `Hydon sunset´, Ajuga `Burgundy glow´Hosta Gold standard, och så roddar. Geranium renardii och okänd Hosta. Carex och Ajuga `Chocolate chip´ Persicaria `Red dragon´och Trifolium repens `Dragons blood´(vitklöver). Juniperus sqamata `Blue carpet´och Hosta `June´. Carex `Ice dance´, Heuchera och Hosta. Hosta `Halcyon´och Heuchera. Grönsaksland... Okänd bonsailik Salix, Acer palmatum `Dissectum garnet´och strandiris. Daggros, Rosa glauca och Alchemilla mollis. Rosenplister och Heucherella. Spirea `Golden princess´, Brunnäva och blodoxalis.

These popular perennials are easy to grow, and they come back every spring to fill your landscape with their beautiful flowers and foliage.

In my area, the garden tour season kicks off with the annual Canadian Cancer Society Tour in late May. Not only does the tour support a worthy cause, it is a wonderful opportunity to see local gardens in all their late spring splendour. Today I want to share with you a garden that was a standout on last year's tour. The lot runs wide to the road and so it was hard to get everything in a single shot. This is a view of the central portion of the front garden. In the beginning, Liz Maliki inherited a builder's beige front garden with a few rather nondescript planting beds and some basic hardscaping. What she really wanted was a garden with interesting sight lines, texture, color and a full four seasons of interest. To determine a new layout for her garden, Liz stood at the front of the house in the dead of winter, when there are less visual distractions from foliage and flowers, and devised her plan. The lot she had to work with was a wide rectangle that sloped gently down to the road. Though the plantings were initially unspectacular, Liz was lucky to have inherited some mature trees including some pines and a red maple. In her new design, Liz incorporated a sweeping series of curved flowerbeds, a fresh mix of plants, and new pathway leading to the entrance to the house. Let's take a look at this pretty garden over twenty years in the making and still evolving to this day: Everywhere you look there are beautiful combinations of color and texture. Even when there is little in bloom, this planting bed will still be colorful. Here we are looking at the same bed as in the previous shot, but this time from the opposite angle. The pink flower in the middle foreground is the Tree Peony in the next shot. Tree Peony A closer look at that mix of perennials and shrubs including hosta, blue and golden colored evergreens, a maroon colored Barberry bush, a golden colored Heuchera (to the left of the Barberry) and Zebra grass (middle foreground). Most of the planting beds can be viewed from both sides and a variety of perspectives. The plantings are not stepped in the traditional way: shorter perennials in front, intermediate and then taller perennials at the back. Instead, Liz has made a point of keeping sight lines visually appealing by varying plant heights like notes in a musical score. A few of the perennials in this bed are hightlighted below: a mix of Heuchera (top right), Hosta (left) the unexpected use of Chives (lower left) and a creamy yellow Tree Peony (lower right). Hostas aren't ordinary when you combine a bright, lime-colored cultivar, a deeply-ribbed, solid green one and bookend them with two variegated varieties. What I think Liz has created here is visual music. The busier variegation of the Euonymous is like the lively notes of a violin singing above the deep, mellow notes of a chello or base, which in this case, are the big-leafed hostas. This is the walkway leading to the front door. On the left, boxwood frames a flowerbed filled with Rhododendrons, Euonymus, a Korean Lilac (on the left edge of the picture). And this is a portion of the flowerbed on the opposite side of the front walkway. Two final pictures of the front walkway. That is a pink Weigela cascading down into the picture frame on the right. In this detail shot, Liz has planted a combination of Hosta, Heather (lower left) pink Azalea and a Spirea (lower right corner). In the next post, we will head into the back garden. More Information and Links: Here are all the details you need to know to attend this year's Canadian Cancer Society Tour. I am going to link this post with the Garden Party at Fishtailcottage and to Fertilizer Friday at Tootsie Time.

Stond er voorheen maar een beperkt aantal variëteiten van Heuchera in de tuin, de allernieuwste generatie purperklokjes heeft heerlijke namen als

Lets remove the mystery behind hostas. Here is the easiest, fastest way to thin and separate overgrown hostas while propagating new plants to grow or share. 1. Start by digging around the plant edg…

Bambi is not interested!

Use this tough plants for dry shade guide to find the best plants for dry shade. These drought-tolerant perennials, ground covers, and shrubs are the plants that tolerate dry shade.

How to grow amazing hostas. The few simple requirements for growing breathtaking hostas to fill in space in your shade garden.

Go big with foliage by planting this layered look as a garden border

A hosta garden is a great solve for planting in shady spots. Here is how to design a hosta garden and make it thrive.