Garden of the Day: International Flora in the Slope

Very, very nice. I’m not sure what kind of sun you get but you might think about some natives and maybe a couple of non-natives to enhance the edges and create some mystery and more color.

You might want to try winterberry, a native holly that loses its leaves in the fall. The female plants have those brilliant red, orange or yellow fruits that hold well into winter and would look GREAT against some of that darker evergreen foliage you already have. You’d need to plunk in a male plant probably somewhere in the garden to get good fruit set on the other plants.

Fothergilla, a native, would be a lovely small, shrubby tree with great fall color. Some of them have nice blue-ish foliage during the growing season.

Serviceberry, another native, might give you a very hardy, multi-trunked small tree, very good for small gardens with its open foliage, spring flowers, edible berries (a bit like huckleberries), which, like winterberry feed the birds, nice fall color…

Witchhazel can also work well. The native types bloom in fall and the non-natives bloom in, basically, late winter…February.

High bush blueberries in the mid-border and low bush as edging can be nice if you’ve acidic soil.

For arching roses with good form, fragrance, resistance to blackspot, rebloom try David Austin’s Heritage or Abraham Darby. They can arch out over other shrubs, hang onto their leaves and bloom into early winter. The arching habit gives a lot of movement to the garden both visually and with the slightest breeze.

For the walls, I would suggest, though not native, clematis montana rubens. You will LOVE the Japanese anemone-like pink flowers that blanket the vines in spring. Simply gorgeous. You don’t prune them in spring. Just wait until all blooming is over and than prune with reason.

Try the climbing rose Eden or for fragrance Zepherine Drouhin or its sport with a lighter color pink. You can also blow your neighbors’ minds with climbing Queen Elizabeth, Peace or Galway Bay which can give you vase-quality blooms on a climber. Or try a good rambler. If shade is an issue Zepherine Drouhin or the smaller Jeanne Lajoie are best…but roses, in general, are a bit of work and may not be for you.

If you have good sun on one wall, why not try a grape? If you want lots of fruit, there are many varieties to choose from though they tend to have larger leaves than the specialized decorative garden types that have very récherché leave colors, forms, etc.

I would suggest the native passion flower, passiflora incarnata BUT it is too unruly for a small garden. You can grow it if you don’t mind pulling it up when shoots come up 15 feet away from the base plant.

Otherwise there are natives you can repot at the end of the season and overwinter indoors or simply keep potted all year long. Other natives, of course are the native honeysuckle (not fragrant unfortunately) and trumpet vine which can do spectacularly well in a sunny spot. Ultimately, I prefer the Asian honeysuckle that has become ubiquitous in the area. I can’t get enough of the fragrance.

We’re thinking of planting hops. It can be very lovely, i picturesque and has so many associations.

A couple last ideas:
For the back of the border: so-called “high bush cranberry” which is actually a native viburnum and has edible fruit…great fall color as well and beloved by birds.

The native euphorbia corollata. We have it in New England and it is wonderful. It is tough as nails but looks very much like dainty baby’s breath. It is carefree and what one would call a “performing perennial” and should be more widely grown. The reason you do not see it for sale at garden centers is that it is slow-growing at first and really wants to be sown where it is going to grow. Even at two years old it would not look like much and might not even take to transplanting so there is little money in it for growers. You can get seeds from the New England Wildflower Society.

Also carefree and lovely the variety of native mountain mint we grow in Brooklyn. It really thrives in this climate (though not as well in New England). The type grow has very silvery top foliage and flower heads that are beloved by native insects and honeybees. The fragrance is a delightful mint smell with a touch of other scents, maybe camphor or eucalyptus. I would include it in any garden for this area. You can’t go wrong.

Have fun gardening!!!
ms bg

Lovely, lovely, lovely vignettes — I do wish I could see the whole yard.

I like your shed. Is that found, custom, or a kit?

This couldn’t be lovelier. Looks like it jumped off of the artfully mussy and perfectly laid out antique display table at Gramercy Tavern. I always attempt to emulate this kind of look and usually fail. Nicely done!

beautiful