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Gardeners and their Gardens

Des Moines, Iowa is typically not considered a destination city. Last July however, it became one as horticulturists, designers and garden enthusiasts flocked to the city to attend the annual Perennial Plant Association’s (PPA) National Symposium. Embassy’s Seasonal Color Specialist JoAnn Prieto and designer Abby Scott attended, bringing back a wealth of new information, exciting ideas and dozens of new varieties to share with their colleagues and clients.

A question came up at lunch the other day that I have been pondering ever since. Brynn, one of the designers at Embassy, was asked for a very specific landscape planting. The client wanted yellow flowers that did not attract bees and wasps. I have to admit that my first reaction was disbelief that anyone in this day and age wouldn’t want pollinators visiting their garden. After all, bees and wasps are a signal that a garden is healthy and that the ecosystem is in balance. Perhaps, I thought, she just needed some information. 

I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage “Pride Goeth Before a Fall?” That sums up what I’m feeling about my back yard right now. At the beginning of the summer, it was drop dead gorgeous. Flowers blooming everywhere with butterflies, bees, birds and dozens of other pollinators enjoying a full buffet. I remember thinking that after all these years and all my hard work I had finally achieved the garden of my dreams. Then, Mother Nature took over. The temperatures soared into the 100s for days on end. No matter how much I watered, the plants withered as I watched. In the middle of the heat wave, I left for a vacation. My daughter took over garden care, but instead of dealing with blazing sun, she faced a new challenge. It rained torrents of water day after day. The weakest plants died, leaving behind brown plant skeletons. When the rains finally stopped and the sun reappeared, new, uninvited vegetative visitors began popping up everywhere. My once picture-perfect garden was, to put it bluntly, an overgrown weedy mess – a typical August garden.

I was just a child when my sister spent a year in France. Ever since, I have dreamed of traveling there to soak up all of the places she told me about. Unfortunately, an extended trip to France simply isn’t in the cards for me right now. Instead, I learned about another way to experience a bit of France here at home. Driving through the Meadowbrook Park community in Prairie Village, Kansas, it’s easy to imagine that you have been magically transported into the middle of France. Many of the homes are architecturally inspired by traditional French design and some are set off by classic French gardens. One of those classic French landscapes was recently completed by Dan Nelson, Senior Designer for Embassy Landscape Group in collaboration with designers at Lorax Design Group and a pair of enthusiastic homeowners. 

I have become very ambivalent about deer.  On one hand, I look out my kitchen window and see this:

Rather than a place to relax and unwind, the idealized suburban landscape of perfectly manicured turf, neatly edged walkways and precisely pruned shrubs can easily become another back-breaking responsibility. There are ways however, to tweak a design that reduce the workload without sacrificing the beauty.

My hydrangeas are beginning to blossom. This spring’s cooler, rainy weather has given my Annabelles a boost I haven’t seen from them in years. This year, their flower heads are massive and so purely white that they gleam in the sunlight and shimmer in the moonlight. Their foliage is deep, forest green and not one leaf is wilted. At this rate, I’ll be able to enjoy them all summer long, at least until the rains stop and I have to remember to water them daily. As soon as I forget a day or two, then the downhill battle to save them begins.

I recently learned, thanks to a very erudite neighbor, that I do NOT have a rock garden in my backyard – I have a rockery. According to her, rock gardens are expansive grounds found in parks or botanic gardens. An historic home may have one, but only if the area it encompasses is quite large. Family homes in traditional neighborhoods like ours have rockeries. Doing a bit of research, I found that my formidable neighbor was, once again, correct, at least for those gardeners of British heritage. Given their history with rock gardens and rockeries though, I think that the British deserve the right to assign names.