…are few and far between in my garden, but I am enjoying my caladiums and elephants ear,which I planted as bulbs in May. They don’t get really going until July, preferring very warm soil, but by August they’re delivering a bit of welcome drama.
They’re easy, the deer don’t bother them, and they can be dug up in fall, overwintered in a bucket of peat moss, and re-planted again in spring.
TIME FOR A MID-SEASON APPRAISAL of annuals.
Some are disappointing. I won’t show pictures of them. You don’t need to see ‘Durango’ yellow marigolds that for some mysterious reason are not thriving, despite sun and even some Miracle-Gro, or common ‘Hawaii Blue’ ageratum turning all brown at the centers (why?).
In other years, I might not bother much with annuals, but because this is my first season gardening here in East Hampton, and my perennials are still babies, I wanted some additional spots of color. And of course, I always do annuals in containers.
There are quite a few successful, satisfying plants, both in the beds and in pots. The winners are pictured here.
To all a happy 4th!
‘Bada Boom’ white begonias, ‘New Look’ dusty miller, and caladiums, thriving in shade.
Chartreuse coleus? Can’t find the label, but its color really pops in the beds.
Celosia ‘Fresh Look’ — my favorite new annual. I may never go without its bushy gold plumes again.
‘Sweet Caroline’ green/yellow Ipomoea batatas — a type of sweet potato vine. More commonly used in hanging baskets, but I’ve planted it in a bed near the front door.
Dark rose ‘Angel Mist’ angelonia, caladium tubers, dusty miller, and a supermarket oxalis left over from St. Patricks Day, flowering white in a pot on my front deck.
THIS IS WHERE I cut my gardening teeth: the 21’x35′ backyard on Verandah Place in Cobble Hill where we lived for twenty years, above, as it looked in May/ June.
We inherited a graceful Japanese maple, a stand of honeysuckle (abelia ‘Francis Mason,’ I later learned), and climbing hydrangea that served to disguise a rusted chain-link fence. There were a few slabs of slate on the ground, which we gradually expanded to a good-sized patio, with pieces salvaged from vacant lots in Red Hook and contributions from friends (I remember one summer night being surprised by a delivery of bluestone slabs from a friend who saw them going begging someplace).
We added a small wrought iron balcony and steps going down into the garden from the parlor floor, and had some old-school masons build steps and a landing with bricks and railroad ties — nothing elaborate — leading down to the well area.
Little by little, through trial and error, I learned how to create a garden. The main challenge: excessive shade. Though south-facing, sun was limited by gargantuan ailanthus trees in the neighboring yards.
A couple of the principles that served me well:
Below: The white feathery plumes on the right (there’s a purple one too) are astilbe — shade-tolerant, reliable, ironclad.
Most satisfying: oak leaf hydrangea along the back line of the property. Three plants (expensive at the time; about $50 each) grew in a couple of years to create three-season glory, with huge, neat, colorful leaves and massive white panicles from June until frost.
See below for more plant suggestions. Any and all of these are recommended for Brooklyn backyards; they’re foolproof and readily available.
Below, left to right: chartreuse andromeda, Japanese fern, ‘money plant’ (those purplish flowers will turn to dry, translucent, coin-like things come fall), the blue spikes of ajuga, all under a climbing hydrangea, soon to flower white.
Below, a deep shade corner, with (left to right) the round glossy leaves of European ginger, Japanese fern, small leaved ivy and small-leaved chartreuse hosta, and yellow-tipped houtonia — pretty, with white flowers, but invasive — you have to be prepared to pull it out where you don’t want it. The cardboard is from a package of caladiums, to remind me where I planted them (they don’t show up till July).
Below, my favorite afternoon reading spot. Left to right: pink creeping phlox; white ‘starry eyes,’ a sun-loving groundcover; the remainder of some pink bleeding heart (easy, showy, great for shade); small white flowering bulbs (the name escapes me – anyone?); variegated hosta; blue wood hyacinth in the background.
This last picture, below, is a bit earlier in the season — late April. The hostas are just coming in. The fuchsia azalea was too gaudy for me; I got rid of it. In the foreground, you can see brownish huechera (coral bells), more ‘starry eyes,’ yellow-flowering lamium or dead nettle, and some tiny hybrid tulips on long thin stems — ordered early on from a bulb catalogue, they came back year after year, providing great pleasure.
Mind you, these are all perennials, not annuals. They don’t flower all season, just for a few weeks. But you plant them once and have them for years with no additional effort or expense. Perennials are the way to go if you’ll be staying put for any length of time. You can divide them in spring or fall to create more of the same, and take some with you if you move.
THIS SPRING, IF YOU SPOT A WOMAN in a flower-covered hat pushing a red shopping cart full of plants around downtown Brooklyn, it’s probably my friend Elke.
A true gardener like Elke, whose outdoor space is a 15’x25′ terrace behind her second-floor apartment in Brooklyn Heights, doesn’t let a few obstacles stop her.
No car? No worries. She does her plant-shopping on foot at the Borough Hall Greenmarket and local stores like GRDN on Hoyt Street, takes the bus to Gowanus Nursery in Red Hook, and relies on Bruno’s Housewares on Court Street to deliver clay pots (never plastic), soil, and other heavy supplies. (The cast iron urns came from Restoration Hardware.)
No direct sun? Elke makes the most of every ray that penetrates the ailanthus canopy around her north-facing terrace: a single hour in the morning and a couple more at midday. By choosing the right plants and coddling them — even shifting them around from time to time to give each a piece of the limited sun — she has wrought a lush green miracle, don’t you agree? (These pictures were taken last June.)
Among Elke’s shade-lovers: vines and climbers like moonflower and morning glory on tuteurs, rosemary topiaries (in the sunniest corner), jasmine, hibiscus, ferns, caladiums, an amazing purple and white ‘corkscrew’ plant (below), coleus, hostas, spotted begonias, passionflower. “I don’t do impatiens,” she says.
Here are Elke’s tips for terrace-garden design and healthy container plants, even if you don’t have a ton of sun:
What makes Elke’s terrace garden so out-of-the-ordinary? I think it has something to do with exotic foliage and unusual color combinations. A multi-disciplinary artist/designer, her favorites are gray/silver (e.g. dusty miller) with chartreuse and burgundy (e.g. sweet potato vine) — and splashes of pink from “as many flowers as I can get.”
casaCARA 