A Connecticut Garden Visit

What could be better than a perfect September day, good food, the best of friends and a gorgeous garden? Not much I can think of.  I'm so fortunate to live fairly close  to some pretty phenomenal gardeners and they are lucky to be a zone warmer than we are here in NH so they can grow some pretty wonderful things.  The Anthony Garden is an interesting, eclectic mix of perennials, trees, shrubs, annuals, temperennials and lots of unique garden art at every turn.  The property is beautifully divided into curving beds with hidden paths leading to quiet seating areas or a surprise focal plant or sculpture. 

Stepping out on the deck is like walking into a gardeners paradise. This grouping is all in containers and forms a beautiful wall of color to enjoy while dining al fresco.

 

 

Taking a stroll off the deck leads you past this great combination featuring a beautifully grown Red Abyssinian Banana. The lovely honeysuckle seen above the banana climbs on a copper trellis and is a magnet for hummingbirds.

 

Tucked behind the banana is this delightful water feature



 

Another great combination....

Walking down toward the gardens you get a glimpse of great things to come....



Love, love, love this combination of Anemone with variegated Dogwood

Amaranthus, Canna and Tithonia

 

How come my Liriope never looks this good????

Love that the centers of the rudbeckia are the same color as the Colocasia 'Diamond Head'

Love the blue Caryopteris echoing the color of the blue container

The marvelous, packed with personality, famed canine model Oliver, Glen of Imaal Terrier

Perennial begonia, what's not to love?

Colocasia 'Thailand Giant'

Love this footie container

The Picea orientalis 'Skylands' is superb

Everywhere you look is another beautiful vignette

Perfect ceramic sculpture for the Lambs Ears

Love that Arundo donax ont he left of this image. Sadly that isn't hardy in Zone 5 where I live...



The Lespedeza thunbergii is gorgeous this time of year....

So it's back to the drawing board for me. Every time I visit this garden I plan for how I can add more shrubs and grasses to my gardens here....  I think it's time to dig up more of the front lawn..

Front Porch Vignette

Over the years this little front porch has gone from a place to sit and watch a thunderstorm to a setting for lots of my 'odds and ends' that don't really fit anywhere else in the gardens.  The chair unfortunately is no longer a place to sit (can't get to it - too many plants in the way) but just another decoration.  Every once in a while it does serve it's intended function when we have a party in the back garden and need additional seating. Mostly it's Rahjii's (the garden Bengal) outdoor snoozing station. 

 

Rahjii the garden Bengal - doing what he does best

This gorgeous cement leaf was made for me by a dear friend. She does some of the best work I've seen of this kind.



Aechmea chantinii black with flower spike and Cryptanthus Black Mystic... I absolute adore these two dramatically marked bromeliads!

The little terracotta urn came from Home Goods years ago and is looking a bit worse for wear but still pleases me with its garden themed design.

Love that terracotta kitty peeking out from behind the dwarf evergreens...

Three great begonias - upper left 'My Special Angel', upper right 'Fannie Moser' and bottom is a fabulous bloomer 'Anna Faile'

A Garden Walkabout

Here we are at the beginning of September and the annuals and tropicals are over the top wonderful. I just love the extravagant (perhaps gaudy wouldn't be out of place as an adjective here) splashes of color in the gardens. Everywhere I look is another swath of color... What a treat to have this reward for the summer's care of the containers.  On the other hand the borders are winding down but there are still Phlox paniculata, persicaria, hydrangea, salvia, heliopsis, helianthus and more still blooming I'm pretty much out of energy for anything more than keeping things watered for another few weeks but I'm starting to plan the huge fall project of dismantling all the pots and getting the tender things in for the winter. But, that will be a next week project, for now I'm enjoying all this wonderful abundance and storing up images and memories for the cold winter months ahead...

Rose garden with Sunpatiens Variegated Salmon at its gaudy best.

The large planter next to the side door is completely filled with coleus, sweet potato vine, lantana, mandevilla, acalypha and more.

Large urn in the driveway garden.

Love that Pennisetum 'Vertigo'

Canna 'Pink Sunburst'

This Salvia coccinea self sowed from a plant I had in a container here last summer.

Aechmea blanchetiana

Love thsi fall combo of Chelone, Buddleia, Agastache 'Blue Fortune and Ceratostigma plumbaginoides

Hydrangea quercifolia 'Little Honey'

Patio containers -  That Acalypha obovata in the large urn is such a star performer

Fuchsia 'Beacon Rosa' standard with Neoregelia 'Donger' at its feet

Containers on the hot tub deck

A quiet corner in the shade

This Sanchezia in the blue pot is four years old now and about seven feet tall... What to do?

Abutilon 'Souvenir de Bonne', Sunpatiens Variegated White, Plectranthus 'Vanilla Twist' and Euphorbia 'Diamond Frost'.

Hydrangea 'Endless Summer' and Persicaria 'Golden Arrow'

What's not to love about these beauties?

Love those Tropicals

 

I've probably mentioned a time or two that I'm an incurable plant collector. This happy/sad compulsion has caused me to stretch the boundaries of what I can grow and winter over. The end result is a tropical extravaganza here in southern NH that comes into it's abundant best right before the cold and frosts chase everything back into dormancy in my basement for the winter...  

Over the last six years or so I've created a container border that houses my collection of tropicals during the summer months. There are usually between forty to fifty pots in the thirty-five foot long by ten foot wide border.  From its humble beginnings in early June it explodes into an eye popping mass of color and form by September...

During early summer this garden looks more like a collection of pots than a garden.

The bare trunks/sticks are actually my mature brugmansias. The one in the right of this photo is my 'Charles Grimaldi' that I've had for six years now. It's a challenge getting it into the basement in the fall.

From these humble beginnings add some water and weekly feeding and a couple months of growth and voila!

The very large Brugmansia 'Charles Grimaldi' in the back of this shot is just budding up at the moment. I was very late getting it out of the basement and into the light so it's more than a month later then normal getting flowers but it looks like I'm going to have a great show before the freezing temps chase it back into the house for the winter.  I'll have to post an update when it finally blooms. Even without the brugmansia flowers the abutilon, lantana, cuphea and dahlia carry the show and create a visual treat in this corner of the border.  What's not to love?