South Eastern Connecticut Landscaping

Spirea ‘Gold Flame’

Barberry ‘Rosy Glow’

The first two shrubs I would like to mention are Spirea and Barberry.  These deciduous shrubs display a colorful array of foliage and blooms (spirea) and are deer resistant.  Each cultivar comes in a variety of sizes including Barberry ‘Royal Burgundy’ (smaller 2-3′), Barberry ‘Rosy Glow’ (larger 5-6′), Spirea ’Gold Flame’ (2-3′), Spirea ‘Limemound’(2-3′) , and Spirea ‘Little Princess’ (1-2′) among others.  These plants are also drought tolerant once established.

Buddleia ‘davidii’

Our next candidate for a “deer resistant” garden is Buddleia or Butterfly Bush.  A deciduous shrub, Buddleia davidii is hardy to zone 5 and produces prolific purple blooms throughout mid to late summer. There is also now a new dwarf variety ‘Lo and Behold’.

Coreopsis ‘Zagreb’

On the ‘deer resistant” perennials list is coreopsis.  Coreopsis or ‘Tick seed’ displays beautiful daisy-like flowers throughout the entire summer and is drought tolerant once established.  It is hardy in USDA zones 4-8.

Nepeta ‘Little Titch’

Nepeta ‘Walkers Low’ is another favorite long blooming perennial that deer do not forage on.  It comes in a variety of different heights ranging from ‘Mussinii’ which is taller to ‘Little Titch’ which is a dwarf form.

Astilbe ‘Sprite’

If you have a shaded area with deer try Astilbe.  Astilbe is a popular perennial that comes in a variety of sizes and colors and thrives in low light.  There are many varieties of Astilbe ranging from white to pink to red and salmon.  The one shown here is Astilbe ‘Sprite’ which is hardy in USDA zones 4-8.

Peony ‘Sarah Bernhardt’

Peony are another favorite of many a gardener, displaying magnificent large blooms in early spring.  Put them onto your list.  They are not desired by deer and our four legged friends usually pass this one by.  Peony are hardy in USDA zones 2-8.


Dwarf Fountain Grass ‘Little Bunny’

If you enjoy having ornamental grasses in your garden they are also “deer resistant”.  There are many varieties of grasses to choose from including the well-known Fountain Grasses Pennisetum Alopecuroides ‘Hameln’ or ‘Little Bunny’ as well as the Maiden Grasses Miscanthus Sinensis ‘Gracillimus’ or ‘Morning Light’ among others.

Crape Myrtle ‘Sioux’

Crape Myrtle, a favorite tree in the landscape also happens to be on the deer do not eat list.  Crape Myrtle once more popular in the Carolina’s is now also popular in the northeast and is hardy in USDA zones 7-9.  Crape Myrtle come in a variety of colors and sizes.  Shown here is Crape Myrtle ‘Sioux’.

Chamaecyparis ‘Gold Mop’

There are various evergreens that are that can also be grown in the “deer resistant” garden.  The one shown here is Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Gold Mop’.  Gold Mop Cypress is a lovely golden evergreen that retains its color all year long, grows 2-3 feet in height and is hardy in zones 4-8.

Deodara Cedar ‘Aurea’

Deodara Cedar is also unfavored by deer and is a beautiful focal point in the landscape.  Deodara Cedar is a large pyramidal evergreen with graceful cascading branches and golden needles hardy to USDA zone 6.

Cryptomeria japonica

A beautiful evergreen for a privacy screening that is “deer resistant” is Cryptomeria japonica. Shown here in the backdrop, Cryptomeria is known for its soft delicate foliage and golden-green color on new growth. Cryptomeria is hardy to USDA zone 5.

Ilex ‘Nellie Stevens’

Next on the list are Ilex or the hollies.  For the most part deer do not prefer most hollies. I have seen cases where the deer are hungry enough that they will nibble on the new spring growth of  the plant but will not touch the more mature inner growth.  The more jagged the leaf on the variety of holly you choose the better.

Vibernum ‘Carlcephalum’

Another lovely plant, the vibernum displays white flowers in early spring and is a nice addition to the woodland garden.  Vibernum are hardy to USDA zones 4-8 and come in a variety of types and sizes.

As mentioned in the beginning of this article, no plant is completely deer resistant.   If the deer are hungry enough they will tend to nibble on plants in the landscape but there are some plants that are much less attractive to deer due to either their taste, aroma or foliage.  The species of plants I have mentioned in this article are the plants I have found to be most successful in the garden over my past fifteen years as a designer.  I hope you find this list to be helpful and informative. As Always, Happy Gardening.

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Pink Tulip



Perennial Garden

Weeping Blue Atlas Cedar, Daylily & Crimson Azalea

The Stella d Oro Daylily is displaying vibrant green foliage against the blue of the Weeping Blue Atlas Cedar and the Crimson Azalea is in full bloom. Soon there will be blooms of yellow that will last throughout the summer.

Wisteria

The Wisteria is a sight to behold with its magnificent lavender panicle blooms. One can also smell the fragrance of sweet perfume. Under the canopy of the Wisteria  are Hosta ‘ Patriot’ and ‘Minuteman’  to add brightness to the garden.  In the backdrop are Heuchera ‘Palace Purple’ and Endless Summer Hydrangea.

Heuchera ‘Caramel’

Heuchera ‘Caramel’, a new addition to the garden this year has an interesting foliage that cannot be beat. Heuchera ‘Caramel’ is said to be very hardy in zone 7 and will tolerate sun as well as shade. I am giving this beauty a test run!

Nepeta ‘Little Titch’

Also new to the garden this year is a miniature version of nepeta. It is Nepeta ‘Little Titch’. It displays beautiful blue flowers all summer long on much more compact silvery green foliage and is also hardy in zone 7.

Sedum ‘Aurea’

The sedum ‘Aurea’ that I planted two seasons ago in between the crevices of the moss rock boulders of the waterfall are finally starting to flourish. They are planted along side Daylily and Blue Pacific Juniper to add color and a natural look. 

Montgomery Blue Spruce & Heuchera ‘Palace Purple’

Behind the Montogomery Blue Spruce is Heuchera ‘Palace Purple’. and Hinoki Cypress ‘Aurea’.  The color combination of the blue, burgundy and gold is striking at this time of year.  

 

Ajuga ‘Burgundy Glow’

Ajuga ’Burgundy Glow’ makes its spring appearance as it emerges along side a boulder in the garden and forms a lovely mat of purple spiked groundcover.  This is also a debut for this plant in my garden. Planted last fall it has made it through the winter and is now thriving.

Spirea ‘Gold Flame’

Spirea ‘Gold Flame’ is an all time favorite in the garden for its firey glowing foliage in early spring. Named for its color the foliage resembles a golden flame. Soon this shrub will be covered in pink blooms that will last throughout the entire summer. 

Bloom Day is a wonderful day of the month to be more aware of the changes going on in the garden. It is a great way to take inventory of what is growing in your garden and to view gardens of other gardening enthusiasts from around the world.  Be sure to visit our hostess May Dreams Gardens and check out all the other wonderful blooms that are emerging.

“In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.” ~ Abram L. Urban



Happy GBBD.  Happy Gardening!

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I think in many ways March is the busiest month in the garden. So many chores need tackled this time of year from mulching to pruning to planting that sometimes it’s hard to figure out what to tackle first! Among the major chores like lawn mower servicing and tree planting there are quite a few little chores.  Like trimming back the liriope in my corner garden bed. The bed is tucked into a corner between my front sidewalk and the driveway. Many people simply take their mower or string trimmer and cut back the liriope but I can’t do that. I interplanted daffodils that are coming up through the liriope foliage. The handpruners will be good enough and since I really don’t have a large area to cover it won’t take long. In the past the rabbits have nibbled the liriope down – but not this year. (Also in that same bed I have daylilies and a rose bush.)

Another minor garden chore that needs done is in this little patio garden bed. The brown grass of my ponytail grass (Stipa tenuissima or Nassella tenuissima) needs cleaned out to let the new blades of grass show off. The Japanese maple also needs pruned. Many of the branches that cross over through the plant should be removed.

If we move in a little closer we can see the hyacinths coming up. Unfortunately my culinary sage is completely shielding them from view. The sage needs trimmed back to encourage a bushier plant but also to allow the spring blooming hyacinths their moment in the sun.

I’ll talk more later about the other garden chores on my list but I’ll put the list below so you can see what else needs done!

The Home Garden Chore List: March of 2011

• Mulch the garden beds
  • Front Gardens – done
  • Corner Shade Garden
  • Back of house Garden
  • Deck and Patio Gardens
  • Vegetable Garden
  • Garden Shed Beds
• Prune
  • Crape myrtles
  • Redbuds – after blooming
  • Caryopteris
  • Japanese Dappled Willows
• Garden Fence
  • Dig Post Holes for Garden Fence
  • Gather materials for posts
  • Set posts
• Plant
  • Dogwood
  • Irises
  • Dianthus
  • Plants propagated last year
  • Anything else I buy!

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Yesterday I spent some time out in the garden with my 3 year old daughter. We dug, we raked, we planted, we played with worms, simply put … we gardened! Here are just a few photos from our time outdoors in the beautiful weather and in the garden. (Oh and just so you know “free for all” doesn’t mean you can steal this post or the photos if it’s not on www.GrowingTheHomeGarden.com it’s not The Home Garden! Feedscrapers are at it again – this is not directed at regular readers)

The front yard is looking pretty good since it was all cleaned up and mulched. There’s still some pruning that needs done – butterfly bushes and yew. There’s the arbor way in the back, it sure looks tiny in the picture!

Here’s my girl running around the daffodils in the front garden with her umbrella. It was windy and she was having quite a time keeping that umbrella in place!

We spent some time preparing the beds and getting them all cleared of spring annual weeds that had crept into the soil.

I think having the kids out in the garden is one reason I changed the URL of my blog to www.GrowingTheHomeGarden.com.  “Growing the Home Garden” is much more than just growing plants.

The self-sown cilantro is doing very well. There’s some henbit that has mixed in but that is easy enough to remove.

A purple crocus was blooming near some oregano and the spent foliage of last year’s daylilies.

And more henbit!

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The greening of the willows! It’s just more evidence that we’ve left winter behind and are heading full speed into spring. The leaves on the ‘Hakuro Nishiki’ dappled willows are emerging.

And so are the catkins! The catkins are the reproductive mechanism of many plants like willows and birches.  Willows are dioecious and have separate male and female plants. If you want your willows to produce seeds it takes two to tango! Soon the new leaves will begin to get a reddish color at the tips and the dappled foliage will make them into a garden feature.

These pictures are from the Japanese dappled willow I pruned last year. I didn’t take a picture of the whole plant this spring, at least not yet. You wouldn’t see much of the form without more leaves.

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The greening of the willows! It’s just more evidence that we’ve left winter behind and are heading full speed into spring. The leaves on the ‘Hakuro Nishiki’ dappled willows are emerging.

And so are the catkins! The catkins are the reproductive mechanism of many plants like willows and birches.  Willows are dioecious and have separate male and female plants. If you want your willows to produce seeds it takes two to tango! Soon the new leaves will begin to get a reddish color at the tips and the dappled foliage will make them into a garden feature.

These pictures are from the Japanese dappled willow I pruned last year. I didn’t take a picture of the whole plant this spring, at least not yet. You wouldn’t see much of the form without more leaves.

Related Posts:

• Vegetable Garden Layout with Raised Beds for 2011
• FAQS
• assessing the lawn: 4 months later

The greening of the willows! It’s just more evidence that we’ve left winter behind and are heading full speed into spring. The leaves on the ‘Hakuro Nishiki’ dappled willows are emerging.

And so are the catkins! The catkins are the reproductive mechanism of many plants like willows and birches.  Willows are dioecious and have separate male and female plants. If you want your willows to produce seeds it takes two to tango! Soon the new leaves will begin to get a reddish color at the tips and the dappled foliage will make them into a garden feature.

These pictures are from the Japanese dappled willow I pruned last year. I didn’t take a picture of the whole plant this spring, at least not yet. You wouldn’t see much of the form without more leaves.

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• Vegetable Garden Layout with Raised Beds for 2011
• FAQS
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Some plants love hanging out!

Limestone cliffs on the Ashland City Greenway

Heuchera villosa thrives on cliffs where it finds the well-drained and neutral soil it needs. It’s native to moist shaded ledges and rich rocky wooded slopes in the mountains from New York to Georgia and west in scattered locations to Missouri and Arkansas. (source)

Excellent drainage!

I love that this strictly North American native is an international sensation!  Gardeners all over the blogasphere sing their praises. I know for certain that one UK gardener, VP/VegPlotting adores them.  Some, would even say, it’s her signature plant.  Tennessee blogger extraordinaire, Frances/Fairegarden even has a  seedling cross that grew in her trough planter… She named it~’H Faire Piecrust’. It’s a cutie pie!

Gorgeous foliage on  native  H americana ‘Frosted Violet’

The delight of heucheras, are the  many colorful cultivars that have been hybridized and  the varied habitats they will grow in.  Most of us can grow heucheras. (Heuchera spp. and cvs., USDA Hardiness Zones 3-8) If we give them the right cultural conditions.   Even the Southwestern states  have their own  heuchera,  H sanguinea.    It’s also a cliff dwelling heuchera and like others of its kind, prefers moist, well drained soil,  It’s  lovely with  classic  reddish colored flowers and scalloped green mottled  foliage and is widely cultivated throughout the cooler parts of North America.  In fact, the Bressingham Hybrids, are hybrids of H sanguinea. They  dominated the plant world until the 1990s,  when an explosion in hybridizing opened the way to more colorful and variegated foliage. It’s that foliage that’s so attractive to most gardeners. But,  for Clay and Limestone~the  flowers have to  attract pollinators.

In my part of the gardening world,  H villosa is my go to heuchera.

The Bressingham Hybrid Coral Bells were a supreme failure in this garden.  I thought them lovely, but, they hated the hot and humid summers.   Lovers of cooler weather and moist, well drained soil; they looked spectacular for one season and then slowly disappeared.  I totally gave up on them,  until a few years ago, when Heuchera villosa ‘Autumn Bride’ came to live in the garden.

H villosa’s  big and bold maple leaf shaped foliage

Hybridizers struck gold with this  Southeastern native species also known as ~ Hairy Alumroot. 

You can see the hairs that make this Hairy Alumroot

 They crossed H villosa with its large, maple shaped leaves, a preference for dappled shade and tolerance for  hot, humid summers with other coral bells and  brought the gardening world more cultivars then one can imagine.  Cultivars like my other favorites~H villosa ‘Brownie and H villosa ‘ Mocha’.

But,  my go to heuchera is Heuchera villosa ‘Autumn Bride’.   She may be a cultivar, but, she exemplifies the best characteristics of Heuchera villosa. 

Isn’t she a beauty!  I love Autumn Bride’s delightful  late summer white  flowers.  They’re borne on erect, wiry stems  sitting  about 2 foot above the foliage, they dance in the breeze and  attract my favorite pollinators~the Bumbles, honeybees and Syrphid Flies.   Like other heucheras,  she’s semi-evergreen,  or in this case,  a pale green that glows in the sunshine.

Heuchera villosa ‘Autumn Bride’  makes a big statement in my hot and humid garden.  She  has those  big maple shaped  leaves,  lovely late blooming flowers that attract pollinators, tolerates heavier soils and crowding from other perennials. But, like all heucheras,  they  DO NOT  tolerate poor drainage.  So plant on a slope, plant in well draining soil, plant in containers or amend your soil to keep it free draining!

Even though, I have amended and mulched…I still lost several Autumn Bride plants.   It was a rough year; flooding rains,  followed by intense drought.  This spring~ I’ll dig  them up;  add a complete landscape mix of crushed shale, humis and composted manures to the existing soil; divide and replant; and, they’ll be ready for what ever Mother Nature throws at us this year.

Now,  tell me, what’s your favorite heuchera? I know you have one!

xxoogail

Welcome to Clay and Limestone’s Wildflower Wednesday celebration. WW is about sharing and celebrating wildflowers from all over this great big, beautiful world. Join us on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Remember, it doesn’t matter if they are in bloom or not~It’s winter! Please add your url to Mr Linky and leave a comment. 

This post was written by Gail Eichelberger for my blog Clay and Limestone Copyright 2011.This work protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.

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You just have to love a flower that brings the sunshine down into the bland February garden. Winter Jasmine (Jasmine nudiflorum)  is a perfect fit for those gardeners who are fed up with winter and can’t wait for spring. It isn’t very showy the rest of the year with its normal looking deciduous green foliage but just before spring this Jasmine puts on a show!

Bright yellow flowers cover the leafless vine/bush all along the length of the branch. I planted my jasmine along one side of our front porch but it really deserves a home in more locations. Can’t you just see the yellow flowers cascading over a trellis before your neighbors even have forsythias blooming?

I traded for this at a plant swap a couple years ago and I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by the results! Last year it began blooming in March but this year it’s flowers are three weeks earlier. Have you planted Winter Jasmine in your garden yet?

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This week I actually found myself outdoors sowing seeds directly into the soil of my garden. Thanks to wonderful Tennessee weather, where you can count on a few days of warm even in February, we’re able to plant a few cool season crops this month.

So far in the vegetable garden I’ve planted:

• Lettuce – two varieties Little Gem, and Tom Thumb
• Spinach – a hybrid
• Sugar snap peas
• Garlic (done in the fall)
• Cilantro (self-sows regularly in the fall)

I planted the lettuce and spinach into my circular raised bed that just recently was put together. I arranged three sticks to divide the area into six sections. Four of the sections are planted and soon I’ll fill the last two with my red lettuce. If we get some really cold weather these plants may need some covering.

I’m planting the sugar snap peas everywhere I can this year. They are delicious right out of the garden and we never seem to have enough. They rarely even make it into the house! Once they have stopped producing we’ll let the foliage die back and nourish the soil with the nitrogen it fixed while growing. Legumes are a great resource! About that time I’ll be able to plant my tomatoes in the garden in and around the fast fading peas.

 

How are your seeds coming?

To join in on Seed Sowing Saturday just link back to this post and tell us about your seed sowing experiences over the past week. Be sure to leave a link below so we can come over and visit your post! Oh, and a Tweet or a Facebook mention/like is always a good thing!

Visit these Seed Starters!

• Sarah at Green Love Grass
• Lynda at Cortina Creek
• Tervy at Garden G’Imp
• Shannon at The Garden State

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