Jump to content

Page, need flower advice


AirwickWithCheese

Recommended Posts

I'd like to landscape to have a year long wildflower, old fashion flowers scheme much like you find in Carmel. Lilacs, jasmine,  augmented with sunflowers and lilies.  

What's the prettiest color and flower scheme you've ever seen? 

Is it true that the Organic Garden people are gone? I'm reduced to asking Page for help.   :(

 

misc.garden.jpg

​...IME, and I have some, the organic people are mostly interested in radishes, green beans,  and eggplants.  Many of them don't know jack shit about landscaping with flowers.

 

You won't be able to do what you want with the same stuff they use in Carmel, because Greenville is not Carmel, but there are a crappe tonne of flowery plants that do well in the Southeast.  

If you are talking flowers in borders for color effect, Gertrude Jekyll kinda wrote the book on this stuff, and you should get and read her book "Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden", which has been reprinted many times.  Generally, you need to figure out stuff that has bloom times that will both extend the overall effect ( so repeat bloomers like roses are often chosen as shrubs to fill in), but also experiment with some stuff that has simultaneous flowering times, like some of the daylilies that will bloom at the same time with stuff like some of the Siberian irises, and the Cal-sibes.

The true lilies require quite a bit of experimentation (at lest they do here in California) to find the ones that will persist and multiply, rather than dwindling and disappearing.  Some of the bulbs you get in the trade are undoubtedly virused........so you need to find healthy stock if you can, and buy from catalogs orders rather than the Home Depot.  I have a few lilies here that are more or less established, but they are not nearly as rugged and as vigorous as the Hemorocallis (daylilies).  You're too warm there for tulips to persist, but there are a great many daffodils youi can cram into spots as fill.

You will be way better off either with old rose varieties (shrubs and maybe some ramblers), but the "English Garden" rrose varieties bred by David Austin have an old rose look on repeating plants, and many of them are strongly scented........all the benefits of the old roses with not as many of the problems.  But there are a lot of old rose varieties that are also helpful.

 

I never had much luck with delphiniums here, but I think yoiu can grow them better there with your summer rains and humidity. How do camellias do there? You need pretty good water quality, and reasonably lose soils, but you can change the Ph to slightly acid if you need to, and they flower in the winter here when most other stuff is dormant, and the rest of the time they provide this swell evergreen shrubby background for everything else.

 

Also, I don't know what you're starting out with for dirt, and that's pretty important.  The roses will do OK in heavy soils, but most of the rest will requires some soil amendments. I have one entire wall in the library devoted to my collection of gardening books.  But were I trying to do what you are suggesting, I'd suck up hard to the old ladies who run the various public gardens locally and belong to the garden clubs and societies.  I learned a lot about roses and old rose varieties by doing the irrigation work for the Historic Rose Garden here for a few years. Some photos of my current garden (i've had three or four different ones here, and I don't have photos for all of them.)

 

 

 

 

 

DSCF0010.JPG

DSCF0013.JPG

DSCF0014.JPG

DSCF0019.JPG

Valentine Flowers and Fruit 001.JPG

Valentine Flowers and Fruit 003.JPG

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, a quick look at her stuff .......   very beautiful but maybe too formal?  I want to smother my cottage in flowers that attract butterflies and bumble bees and look like something straight out of Disney. 

Really fragrant and colorful. Lilacs, jasmine,  old, old, old.  :) 

Begonias to accentuate my Confederate flag. When can you be here to start? 

Here are some of my azaleas.   

 

 

 

20150409_074237.jpg

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, remember some basics, like plant in groups of 3,5,7.  Odd numbers work better.  Higher stuff at back and edges, lower stuff down front.  Warmer colors to center back, cooler colors front and edges.  Focal points are good and create drama.  Curved lines.  We like to be led, felt as we are choosing a path, rather than being forced down a straight path.  On color, I really like to use color opposites together, orange and blue as an example.  Then go to complimentary colors.  A monochrome bed would be fun as well, playing with shades of red, or blue, or pink.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, a quick look at her stuff .......   very beautiful but maybe too formal?  I want to smother my cottage in flowers that attract butterflies and bumble bees and look like something straight out of Disney. 

Really fragrant and colorful. Lilacs, jasmine,  old, old, old.  :) 

Begonias to accentuate my Confederate flag. When can you be here to start? 

Here are some of my azaleas.   

 

 

 

20150409_074237.jpg

​...if you already have that much going on in the azalea department, camellias ought to do well and will considerably extend your season of bloom.  Gertrude has another book titled "Wood and Garden" which might give you better suggestions, the other one is more a color theory treatise for flowers based on formal borders.  

In the more open, sunnier areas you ought to give either the old roses or the David Austin roses a go, and as you already know, there are some lilies that can be strategically planted in some relatively crowded spots that will sort of grow up through the azaleas and bloom later on. The various colors and varieties of L. henryii work well for this here. I think I recall some chain link fence.  I had about half a mile of chain link fence up in the foothills, and I planted climbing and rambler roses along most of it.  By the time I left, you couldn't see much fence, but it was a great spot for roses.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...I went out and took a couple of pictures for you.  these are just for you, no one else should view them.

Garden_001.thumb.JPG.5f3deebd06efc267d39Garden_002.thumb.JPG.3ba325d5f547da3812b

This is L. henryii (the white variety) along with some Hemerocallis the name of which i forget. There is also something called Crocosmia 'Lucifer' (the dark red stuff).

In a lot of the older gardens you see around here, there are a great variety of persistent bulbs.  I don't know which ones do well where you are, you have to either experiment or suck up to the garden club ladies.

 

Garden_003.thumb.JPG.6ac2934e0ebd1100b52

This is an orange daylily that I finally discovered blooms simultaneous with this particular Agapanthus, so nice color contrast. Sadly, they are both in a trifle too much shade to do really well.

 

 

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Page, I would like your pics but you didn't praise my azaleas.  :(

 Prettiest this side of Augusta. I play Sweet Home Alabama to them every morning at 7:30 sharp. 

​...I let the azaleas pass with little comment because i have lost a great many of them here to some sort of soil organism that kills the roots, possibly combined with the long hot dry summers.:( So it was out of remorse for my own dearly departed plants, along with petty jealousy, for which i now apologize. I've always had pretty good results with them in other places.  I think if there is one secret to all this gardening stuff it is to keep on planting stuff, and eventually you will end up with a relatively complex and pleasing tapestry of the survivors.:)

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a pretty yard.  What do you think of this. I call around until I get the right garden lady.....

I say to her, please do with my modest cottage what you will. You say plant it, I plant it with no questions.  When we're done though, I want to have the prettiest yard in Greenville.  Anything less means we failed.  

You say plant jasmine on the roof? I plant jasmine on the roof. I'm serious. I could be like a satellite yard of experimentation.  

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This Cheesehead guy sure has come around with you Paige.  It used to be he only liked Wilbur.  Now I feel there is definitely an affinity towards you.  Do his yard right and there might be some sex involved.

​...after death and destruction, sex is the biggest thing going on in the garden.:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You bastiges completely ignore jsharr.  This saddens him.  He studied horticulture at Texas A&M and spent years in the nursery business.

Actually you're right, I apologize.  To be honest,  your posts were so surprisingly intelligent I didn't know how to respond.  

I award you the job because you're a Texican and do not have any filthy hippiness in your past.  

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

​Horticulutre with an emphasis on landscape design and construction.  Worked in the retail/wholesale nursery industry for years.  Certified nurseryman, certified pesticide applicator.  Oversaw our annual color greenhouses as well as retail nursery business for a small nursery in Murphy Texas.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...