Arctic Blast! Not at Planting Fields Arboretum

This past Autumn we spent a wonderful afternoon at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay NY. While all the outside plant displays were magnificent as always, it was the greenhouses that took our breath away.

This morning we awoke to a fridgid 4 degrees, talk about cold! It's one of the coldest winters I can remember, the salt water bays of Northport, Centerport, Cold Spring Harbor and Huntington are frozen solid. One place though that I know is warm is inside the greenhouses at Planting Fields Arboretum, I can't wait to get there again.

The plant displays change in the green house from season to season although the large main-stay plants are always there. I'm not going to try to list the plant names, tropical plants are not my expertise.

The best lesson I've learned from tropical gardens is how important foliage color and form can be. Who needs flowers with a combination like this?

I couldn't resist it, this is the same shot just a little closer. I'm in love with all these patterns, colors and textures.

Being that this was fall, there were quite a few Chrysanthemums in the display. I'm not complaining.

There are benches and ledges scattered around, it's easy to find a place to sit. I keep promising myself to come back here with a book and just relax for a few hours. It's something I've put on my bucket list.

If you have time, there's side rooms with different temperatures and air conditions. You'll find a dry room with cacti, an orchid room and a room filled with begonias. There's probably even more rooms, I haven't made the full tour in a number of years.

There's no reason to sit inside and complain about the snow and ice, get yourself over to Planting Fields Arboretum and soak up some plant life!

melanie

Crop & Stop

Ok, this is going to be fun!

Now some people might think I'm a total nerd but I had such a blast sitting here playing with photos I took this past Thursday at Bridge Gardens. I usually just clean my photos up a bit, rarely do I play with any special effects. My favorite tool is crop, it's just too cool to be able to take a photo and make it something totally different by eliminating something and highlighting something else.

For instance, this first shot is a mass of Echinacea (one of my favorite flowers for photography). The color variations in this planting takes my breath away.



My first crop attempt was a simple horizontal one, it brings more cones into view and some nice bees too.


A vertical crop can be extremely exciting. I've made a number of bookmarks out of vertical shots like these. I know I had a post about it somewhere but just can't seem to find it...duh, I just remembered I have a search box.

If you want to see how I make bookmarks out of garden photos just go to my other blog Old Country Gardens and type in bookmark in the search box.


Echinops ritro is another great flower for photographs. I shot a few of them while standing in front of this clump.


Here's a crop from one of those photos...I'm so in love with this that I made it my screen saver! I think that's the rear view of that bee but doesn't it look like it's smiling?


Other plants are harder to photograph. This teasel was a toughie and cropping it made all the difference in the world.


Sometimes while cropping you find something totally unexpected. Years ago I took a photo in the Carolinas of a really cool looking insect. Although I didn't notice the insects while I was taking this photo, I found them while playing with my crop feature. Anybody know what these are?


Ornamental pepper blooms are lovely, I had to get down on my hands and knees and shoot upwards here.


Finally, I just had to add another Echinacea (cone flower). They are just so magical much fun to photograph! If you want to see more photos that I took at Bridge Gardens you'll find them at Old Country Gardens.

Today is sunny and HOT so no photos today...think I'll go jump in the pool instead.

SPLASH*************

Kim's Garden

The other day I met some gardening friends for a workshop at my friend Kim's home in Huntington Bay. The weather was perfect and of course, so was Kim's garden.

I was torn between working on making the hypertufa troughs (read more about it on my Old Country Garden blog) and taking photos of the most wonderful spring display of blooms.

Little vignette's were all over the place, this one was my favorite!



Kim's mother Joan has a garden on one side of the house. Joan was always such a talented gardener that it was no surprise to me to see how lovely her newest creation has taken off. Even with health issues Joan has done a great job here.


Looking down closely you can see how lovely the Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea' looks as it wends it's way around the stepping stones. This side garden is so stunning that it deserves it's own post in the future.


One last shot, a close up of the weeping Cherry tree. Isn't it breathtaking?

I thought I'd finish up today's post with some good news...I'm taking a hiatus from working retail, need to deal with some health issues but I will also be able to spend more time in the garden. So stay tuned, Melanie's Perennials will be open for business soon, maybe this coming Saturday, April 17th!

Can't wait to see all of you again,
Melanie

Trial vs Display Gardens

Yesterday, after finishing a horticulture course (you can read more about it at my Old Country Gardens blog) a few fellow club members and I headed over to Eisenhower Park. We decided to visit the trial gardens that are planted there outside the Cornell Cooperative Extension office.

Most people don't realize there is a vast difference between a "trial" garden and a "display" garden. In a trial garden you will often find new plant material or even unregistered (unnamed) seedlings of plants. There are also often rules that state the plant material cannot be given special attention (such as extra fertilizers or pinching or staking).

Trial gardens are often unattractive, plants are planted in rows, right next to something that does not combine well. But, a trial garden is well worth your time to visit because it is a learning tool.

The Celosia 'Fresh Look Gold' in the top photo was the best looking plant in the All America Selections trial area.

This fall blooming Allium was in the herb garden but I did not see a cultivar name.

The best garden by far (in my opinion) was the butterfly garden. It was incredibly full and lush. My only regret was that I could not find labels with plant names. That's not to say there weren't labels there, it's totally possibly that at the base of the plants there were small labels but none were visible to the eye and with the multitude of pollinating insects that were on these plants, I had no intention of disturbing anything.

This soft orange Agastache (hyssop) had the most delicious scented foliage. Kim and I really liked the color too, especially against the lavender blues that were in the garden. I'm pretty sure I've seen this plant for sale around here under the name 'Apricot Sprite'. It's not a perennial Agastache in our zone.

Here's one landscape shot of the butterfly garden. The tall lavender Verbena bonariensis was just all over the place, waving in and out with the strong gusts of wind. The wind was actually making it quite difficult to get clear photos.

Another landscape shot, this one has a nice Sedum in the foreground. If you've been reading my blogs for any amount of time you know I love Sedum. This time of year they really put on a show and who could complain about something this lovely that blooms in September?

I couldn't help trying to get a close up of the orange bloom that had snuck it's way into a sea of Rudbeckia.

Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly weed) has finished blooming and now it's incredible seed pods are popping open. There's three or four Asclepias growing here in my garden but for some reason I have no seed pods this year. I do think it's because there were lots of insects munching on the plants but hey, that's why I grow them!

Isn't it cool how this single fluffy seed pod was caught up on a Verbena bloom? It made me want to take a handful of seeds, blow them into the air and make a wish.

Whoa, just heard a big rumble of thunder and it's starting to pour. Yesterday when I came home I found my entire patio table in my swimming pool. It still had the 9' umbrella with cast iron base attached. The umbrella spokes were shattered and one spoke had punctured one of my new lounge chairs. What a bummer...and what a hard time I had getting it out of the pool without getting into that freezing cold water myself!

I'm feeling a cleaning frenzy come upon me. Rare as these are, I'd better take advantage of it while the mood strikes me. Hope I can remember where my vacuum cleaner is......

The Visit

This past Monday I had the pleasure of hosting garden writers Felder Rushing and Darrell Trout in my garden. While I have met Darrell a number of times in the past, I knew little about Felder so made sure I checked out his website before the visit.

Seeing that Felder was into garden "junque", I made sure my "junque" was in tip top shape. The golf bag that is always out on my front lawn quickly got a companion although I do think I need to dress her in something more appropriate than my old nightgown.

The garden was just past peak bloom but close enough that it made little difference. This is what one of the front borders looked like.

Quite a few daylilies were still strutting their stuff. My garden is mostly filled with spider daylilies or ones with unusual forms like this 'Murphy's Law'. I find that they compliment the garden as a whole while the round ruffled tetraploid daylilies seem too stiff and formal for my country style of gardening.

The Helenium 'Mardi Gras' was just beginning to bloom. I look forward to two months of glorious color from this fantastic perennial.

The Stokesia (Stokes asters) are also at their peak and multiple photos were taken of them. I missed out on this shot, the lighting wasn't right.

Still, the tour was glorious. At the end we sat in my garden swing and talked about gardening on a whole. We were surrounded with waving blooms, daylilies, Lysimachia clethroides (gooseneck loosestrife), Mondarda (bee balm), Echinacea (cone flowers) and more. It was heavenly!

I'm going to cut this short right now since the clouds are thick and I want to run out and take some photographs this morning.

Wishing all of you a wonderful day!
Melanie

Open Garden!

Tomorrow is open garden day here. Right now I'm so tired that I've just posted the same photo here as I did on my other blog. This is me at my sales booth today, thankfully most of the plants had already sold by the time this photo was taken.


The foxgloves are in peak bloom here along with a number of other perennials. I hope you can stop by and see us, bring an umbrella and wellies if it's raining, I'll still be out there :=)

Come any time from 10:30 - 4:30!

Melanie