I used to think white flowers were boring.  With all the colors of the rainbow out there for the planting, why choose white?

The answer is the same reason why you would choose red or blue…  To get a particular feeling from it, because each color can subconsciously tell us different things.  Anyone who has looked into paint colors for their walls can tell you that there are categories out there.  Cool colors like blue or green are supposed to be calming.  Hot colors like red, orange and yellow are thought to be feel warm to people.  But what does white say to you?

To me it meant purity, class.  I think now that I have a greater appreciation for it and I see it as a clean kind of color, or non-color if you will.  It’s a great accent around the home, inside and out, to make things crisp or make other colors pop.  Like the white molding around a my doorways, against green painted walls.  Or white flowers against green foliage!

White also shows up better than any other color when light is waning.  If you entertain outdoors into the evening, how pretty would white flowers look on the borders of your space?  Don’t forget the affects of moonlight on white flowers either.  One of my favorite white flowers is called the Moonflower vine.  It gets it’s common name because instead of blooming in the morning like other flowers, it blooms through the night.

Beautiful, isn’t it?  It smells great too.  You might be thinking that it looks a lot like the Morning Glory vine, and for good reason.  It is Ipomoea Alba, in the same family.  But these flowers are larger and fragrant.  It can be aggressive so if you do let it go to seed, proceed with caution.  You will have it around for a long time, whether you want it or not.

If you think you might want to plant a white garden, consider that you don’t have to be rigid on your choices.  There are many flowers that are dazzling white but also others that have some color in them.  Take, for example, Anemone Andrea Atkinson, which is growing in my full sun border.  This is the photo at the top of this blog.  The orange and green in the center is what draws me to this flower.  The foliage isn’t much to write home about but what makes this Anemone flower special is that it’s one of very few plants that start to bloom in Autumn.

White doesn’t have to be about just flowers.  There are a lot of plants out there with blotches or steaks of white in their leaves.  This is called variegation, and I’ve seen much more variegated plants in recent years than before.  When I was planning the shrub border outside my new white fence, I purposely chose plants that had both white and green in them:

The tree in the middle is a white flowering Dogwood.  Flanking the ends are variegated ornamental grasses, then Euonymus, and Spirea.  Although the Spirea isn’t variegated, the flowers are white, so it goes with the theme.  Since my fence is only 4 feet tall, I wanted plants that would provide some privacy but not be as bold or impenetrable as a line of evergreens.  I wanted to have nice plants, but not have them be focal points per se, so the white blends in with the fence better.

While they don’t look substantial in this photo because they were newly planted, they have grown a lot, and the ornamental grass in particular is a monster.

Here it is with another variegated plant, a butterfly bush.  The ornamental grass is now five feet tall and the butterfly bush over six feet tall.  But they don’t seem as dense as they are because the form of the plant and the white edging lend a sort of airy, light feel to them.

Another great performer for me that is in the white family is Anthemis E.C. Buxton.  I did have some challenges with flopping on the outer edges of this plant this year, so I’m going to get supports for next season.  It does like good drainage and I don’t think I’m giving it enough, so that could also be my problem.  It’s a very lush plant and it actually does flower as much as the picture shows.

Besides the usual flowering cherry trees and dogwoods you see in spring, my neighbor has a beautiful white Crape Myrtle named ‘Natchez’.  It blooms in summer, and as you can see, it’s stunning.

White doesn’t have to be strictly white either.  Certain plants have a silvery sheen to them and can compliment a white garden by breaking it up and accenting other plants.  Take the white and green Brunnera Jack Frost and the purple and silver Heuchera Silver Scrolls in the below picture…  These are shade plants and can brighten up a spot under a tree or in the shadow of your home.

Whatever kind of plants you like, you will probably find a white version.  All the classics like Tulip, Crocus, Hyacinth, Hydrangea, etc. all have beautiful white colors available also.

Please feel free to share your favorite white plants, I would love to know what you like too.

Happy gardening!

Tricia

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The first time I saw a picture of a succulent tower, I thought, “Why didn’t I think of that?”  Truth is, I usually don’t come up with these ideas on my own, I just see them somewhere and put it into my own garden.  I admit my lack of creative thinking and make up for it by giving credit where credit is due.  So, thank you to the Garden Junk forum at GardenWeb, for providing me with inspiration.

Ever since my first Christmas Cactus years ago, I have always had cactus and succulents around.  Many people think of prickly spines when they think of this drought tolerant family, but there are so many options that don’t cause harm to your fingers. Sedum is one of my favorites, and I have a few different varieties. Last year I bought Sedum Red Carpet and Sempervivum Twilight Blues (otherwise known as Hens and Chicks) but I never planted them! They sat in their little cellpacks outside all winter and came back this year like gangbusters. These little guys are tough and can take a beating.  I don’t recommend this, of course, but it did work out for me.

What they can’t handle is too much attention. Like I said, I totally neglected mine and they loved me for it. You have to keep in mind that they don’t WANT your water. They don’t want compost, they don’t want fertilizer, they just want you to leave them be and admire them from afar. What can be easier than that?

This year, I knew I had to get those babies planted so I bought a few more succulents – Sedum Acre from Bluestone Perennials and locally, Echeveria runyonii ‘Topsy Turvy’, Sedum Burro’s Tail, and Echeveria ‘Perle Nurnberg’. I still had some leftover Hens and Chicks from years back when I last made a succulent potted garden, and I put those to work too.

If you want to do this, you’re going to need the right type of pot and soil. I chose terracotta because it absorbs moisture and it helps when you don’t want to overwater cactus and succulents. In my neck of the woods, if I leave it outside in winter, I’m chancing it cracking and breaking. It took three years for my old terracotta pots to crack, but they did eventually. This new tower is coming inside in the winter.

As far as soil goes, you don’t want to retain moisture. That means gravel, sand, perlite, whatever will lighten the soil and provide little water rentention. I used all of the above, mixed with plain old potting soil, light and fluffy. Remember, don’t feel bad for them, they don’t want your rich soil.

Once you have your plants, pots, soil and soil amendments, you’re ready.

Here’s my step-by-step:

Step 1 – Setup your potting table

Potting mix, perlite, pots, old plants, new plants.  You can see what happens to terracotta pots when you leave them outside in the winter.  That purple container on the ground is a tub trug that I got from Gardeners.com. I used one of them to mix my potting soil and the other for garbage.  It’s very lightweight, the handles don’t hurt your hands, and it’s convenient to have a few around.

: succulent plants :

Here are some of my selections.  The new Hens and Chicks are on the left, and the old salvaged ones in the right in the green pot.  You can see which ones are happy and which are not!  The leaves of the Echeveria are very delicate so they should be handled with care.  I broke off a few by accident during the potting process.  Oops.

Step 2 – Plan your tower

You definitely want to do this before you start planting.  I changed mine around a bit to get the right height, and I’m glad I could do that without shifting the plants around.

The green pot supporting the second tier was wide enough to provide support for the weight, but too tall.  So I took out my scissors and cut the top rim off of it.  I also used the scissor to punch holes in the centers of the plastic pots to allow for the bamboo stake.  In retrospect, I don’t really think I need the stake, but I was concerned about the whole thing shifting or separating.

If you are going to use a stake, a suggestion…  Get some window screening.  Line the bottom of the base pot with it first, to provide an anchor for the stake so it doesn’t slide right out.  I didn’t have window screening handy so I took a curved piece of terracotta from a broken pot and placed it over the drain hole.  The screen will also prevent your potting mix from getting washed out of the bottom of the pot.

I always use some kind of rock or packing peanuts in the bottom of potted succulents.  They love that drainage.  Here’s another ‘been-there-done-that’ tip for you…  See the peanuts in this picture?  Make sure they’re not the biodegradable kind.  These were, and once you put them in water, they shrivel and disintegrate.  I always have multiple bags of peanuts on hand, and I did have others that didn’t break down.

Put your plants, pots and all, in the tower.  See how you want to position them to provide interest on every side.  Do you have enough to fill the pots?  Keep the mature width of the plants in mind and be patient, because they will fill in.  Some gaps in your tower are fine, because you’ll dress them up later.

Lastly, look at the tower from above, but also eye-level.  Does it look even to you?  Do you want more height?  If you do, keep in mind the ‘support’ plastic pots will be visible if you put them too high.  I liked the nesting look, so I kept it lower.

Step 3 – Start planting

I wanted to have a dense, large planting on the bottom tier to serve as a kind of anchor for the tower.  I chose to put my biggest plants here, and fill in the gaps with Hens and Chicks that would stay on the surface but spread left and right, and Sedums in different colors that would cascade over the side.  I wasn’t that concerned about the color combination but I do like the blue-green, yellow-green and pink together.

I did make a kind of triangle with the Echeveria on purpose – I like the way odd numbered plants look.  Also, these are the non-disintegrating kinds of peanuts I was telling you about.

Although I told you to consider mature spread for these plants, I didn’t take my own advice.  I crowded them in because it’s mid-July and they’re probably not going to take over before it’s time to bring them in for the winter.  Next year, I know I will have to break them up and perhaps make a sister tower to go along with this one. 

Tier 2 doesn’t have any big Echeverias in it, I chose low growing and cascading plants for this Tier.  I tried to space the cascading plants so they wouldn’t be right on top of the big plants below.  If you notice the same plants on both Tiers, there are more odd numbers and triangles there.

I chose this huge Echeveria as the tower topper because it’s very striking and has a different leaf form than the others.  I did have to shave some roots off the bottom for it to fit in the shallow pot, and I’m not sure how it’s going to like being that crowded.  I’m still not sure about this one, and may go get a different pot that has more depth to it.  That’s one of the nice things about the tower, you can lift off a tier fairly easily.

So that’s about it!  Below are pics of the finished product, I hope you enjoy.  As the plants grow and if I change anything, I will update this post with pictures.

Thanks for reading! 

Trish

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Santo… what? Never heard of it.

The picture above is of my Santolina Ericoides that I purchased from Bluestone Perennials during their Memorial Day weekend clearance sale last year. I was intrigued by the picture, started to wonder where I would put it and thought… Take a chance. It’s cool, you can give it the conditions it wants, and it’s not a typical garden flower.

So I did, and now it is the first thing you see when you look in that area of my yard. It’s striking, and I’m so glad that I took a chance and ordered those three little plants in their 4 inch pots. I’m amazed at how much they’ve grown after only one season, and many people who visit my garden look at it and say, “What is THAT?”

See, I’m a color-between-the-lines kind of person but I’m trying to break out of that. I need to be more impulsive because gardening should be about those chances and surprises too, shouldn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, my planning and diagrams have helped me out a lot but I decided to make less plans this year.

When I went shopping for plants to fill the empty pots I had laying around, I focused a little bit on complimentary colors and forms, but I also bought plants I can’t even pronounce. Two weeks after that shopping trip, here’s how they’re growing, what is working and what isn’t…

Believe it or not, there is a pot in there.  It contains one miniature Canna Lily, two Daisy plants (Osteospermum), and two Super Bells (Calibrachoa). The good: healthy and fast growing flowers. The bad: there’s a lot of purple in there and you can’t see it! The orange just took over. I didn’t anticipate how large it would get and just packed it all in there, not caring if they were crowded because, except for the Canna, they’re annuals. Lesson learned: put in half the amount of plants.

Here’s one that is working for me!  Clockwise from top right there’s Dahlia, Heliotrope, Sweet Potato Vine, and two Coleus hiding in there.  I did plan this one a little better and the combination of orange, purple and green look good.  Dahlias and Coleus have always been a favorite of mine but the others are new to me.  I wanted a semi upright plant (Dahlia), a trailing plant (SPV) and something colorful for the middle too (Heliotrope, Coleus).  I didn’t exactly plan this but I just noticed that everything has these elongated pointed elements from the flower petals to the leaves.  The good:  color, shape and texture combinations look good and everything fits nicely into the pot.  The bad:  the Coleus is not happy and hasn’t really taken off yet.  They are the plant that needs the least amount of sun in this combination so maybe they should be transplanted into a shadier spot.

This is another one I’m liking.  Again, I used Dahlia but I also put in the blue trailing flowers (that I have to ID because it didn’t have a tag!), you can see a little of the pink Lantana poking out, and the spiked Ptilotus.  Lots of green foliage in this one, so I’m counting on the flower forms and colors to make it more interesting.  It’s growing very nicely so far.  The good:  the scale of each element is right, and one thing doesn’t overpower any other.  The bad:  the foliage is a little boring.

I had these little blue pots to go along with all the gray and orange I have going on so I put some of the smaller plants in it, two Coleus and something called Gomphrena.  I like the little balls of flowers and they’re kind of cool to touch also.  Red, Orange and purple?  Not so sure about that yet.  I also need to keep pinching off the ends of the Coleus to get it to grow bushier instead of more upright.   The good:  interesting combination that may or may not grow on me.  The bad:  putting a full sun plant with a Coleus that likes some shade, possibly a bad color combination.

I hope you’re enjoying your own garden, making plans and taking chances!  More later on how these pots fare the summer sun and heat…

Thanks for reading, happy potting!

Trish

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