Fall Colors

Fall is a good time to learn about color, and nature is a good teacher.  Flower and foliage hues generally become muted.  These calmer colors work well together; put a bright, summery color into a fall landscape and the effect is shockingly discordant.

Something else is going on as well.  There is a common thread that pulls these colosr together.

 
This collection of hydrangeas, russian sage and boltonia are all linked by gray.  The leaves and stems of the russian sage and boltonia are gray-green.  The blooms of the hydrangea are fading to gray-green and gray-violet.  Contrast these flowers with the same hydrangeas mid-summer;  there the flowers are clear blue and violet-magenta. 

A rule I learned in a color class is to find the dominant color, then make sure that there are aspects of that color in every other hue in the composition.

In a garden, find the dominant hue or "feel" of a color.  During springtime, pastels dominate.  In summer, bright, clear colors rule.  Fall is the time for muted, grayed colors.  Winter is influenced by whites and blues.

There are exceptions.  Deciduous trees, especially maples, glow with reds, yellows, and oranges.  The leaves soon fade to muted browns, ochres, and umbers.

You can use this information to put together an outfit, decorate a room, paint a picture, and of course, design a garden.

Shade Perennials

I was inspired by a recent trip to the Cleveland Botanical Garden Center to tackle the shade section of my long border.  Following one of my own rules, I finally moved three early blooming astilbe to the middle of the border, and relocated a pink turtlehead chelone lyonii 'Hot Lips' to the front.  I bought another turtlehead and put it next to the transplanted one.

 The plant with the yellow flowers in the middle of the above picture is a yellow waxbells Kirengeshoma palmata.  This plant was also in Cleveland.  It will get big - up to about three feet.  I hope that I like it when this section has matured.

I also put in two windflower plants Anemone 'September Charm'.  Their blooms appeared right away on wiry stems.  The other day I was walking past my neighbor's house and noticed that they had the same windflower.  Theirs, however, was huge - about four feet by four feet. I'm not sure what I will do if mine get that big.

 

The plant on the right is liriope.  It has started to bloom.  I volunteered at Elm Bank, a Massachusetts Horticultural site, this past weekend, spent time weeding liriope, and learned a few tricks on dealing with its aggressive growth habit.  First, it's better to divide in the spring.  If you are going to divide in the fall, get a garden knife and cut away at the root ball.  Good luck trying to divide it with a spade.  When I do divide, I am going to put some of the plants in my front beds.  Lots of gardens in Washington, DC use liriope as a ground cover for their shrubs, and it looks very elegant.   

Keep the Eye Moving

I was  going to call this post "Moving Day", but decided that title conveyed the wrong message.  I did move a lot of plants last week.  While I was moving them, I realized what was really important about the changes I was making.

The section of border I worked on is dominated by pastels.  I did have three white summer phlox in the back left, though.  The phlox have been imperfect - too much mildew, but a very nice fragrance.  One issue that crystallized as I worked was that the viewer's eye went immediately to the blooming phlox and stayed there.

 
(This picture was taken last year - the asters in the front center died and were replaced with veronica.)

I wrote earlier this summer that I moved three veronica to the center front, and put cranesbill geranium and pincushion flower scabiosa c. 'Pink Mist' behind them.  I took the unusual step of putting a tall plant in front of  shorter ones because the veronica re-blooms profusely after it is deadheaded.  I discovered this summer that there is an excellent second bloom, but that the time gap between flowerings was too long for a plant in the front of the border.

 

I wish that I had taken a picture when the veronica was out of bloom and the phlox was blooming - that would have driven my point home better.

Even though the veronica has bloomed beautifully for weeks, I decided that it was time for a major overhaul.

I bought two ornamental kale plants (annuals), a white butterfly flower, gaura linaheimeri, and three garden asters 'Blue Henry I'.  I took out all of the phlox and much of the lady's mantle (chartreuse flower, spreads aggressively.)  I moved some of these to a nursery border in my back yard.

The lady's mantle were put in the back, against the fence.  Two delphinium were put in front of these in the center.  The gaura was placed in the middle.  The veronica were moved to the middle left, the asters were moved to the middle right.  The pincushion flowers were planted in the center front, flanked by the ornamental kale.  Finally, the geranium cranesbill were put behind the pincushhion flower.

 

By placing the gaura in the center I hope to avoid the unbalanced effect of having a non-pastel colored flower off to the side.  I will see how it works as the season winds down. 

Shade Perennials

The shady section of my long border is ignored most of the year.  A recent trip to the magnificent Cleveland Botanical Gardens convinced me to give this section a little more love.

I am as guilty as most people of thinking that shade plants only bloom in the spring and early summer.  Think astilbe, bleeding heart, fuschia.  Late bloomers include hosta and liriope, which I tend to think of as groundcovers instead of flowering plants.  My shade border also includes a tree peony, regular peonies, and siberian iris.

A walk through the woodland section of the Cleveland Botanical Garden opened up my eyes to plant pairings and choices that I would not have thought of on my own.

One such pairing is turtlehead (chelone) with lobelia cardinalis.  

 I think of lobelia cardinalis as strictly a sun lover, albeit one that likes moist soil.  It turns out that this plant can be quite happy in the shade as well.  In addition to being a beautiful red flower with a long bloom time that attracts hummingbirds, it also helps the soil retain moisture.  That would not work well with asclepias tuberosa, which loves drought conditions, but does work well in a shade garden, especially when there has been little rain.  

I happen to have a turtlehead hidden in the back of my shade border.  Soon I will move it to the middle of the border, and relocate the astilbe that is currently there to the mid-back of the border.

Another surprise was the number of hydrangeas that thrive in the shade.  I think of these plants as sun lovers (that like a drink of water in the late afternoon.)  Lacecap and black stem hydrangea were two species that I noted.