I agree! I am always inspired by learning about past gardeners and looking at images of their creations. Being able to create a border filled with color and blooms is an art form.
My favorite combination this year is a grouping next to our lamppost: Clematis ‘Elsa Spath, Salvia ‘Caradonna, Salvia ‘Blue Hill, Buxus ‘Green Velvet and Stachys ‘Helen von Stein”. I garden in Virginia, Zone 7b. Love your videos Sue because they add an extra dimension to my enjoyment of gardening. I’m almost 70 years old and gardened with my Grandmother as a very young child. Gardening is as essential to my life as breathing. Thank you❤
My gardening style has become less broadly planted and focusing more on small vignettes. We all have microclimates throughout our gardens and I've been enjoying layering plants by placing a low ground cover than adding additional plants with contrasting colors. Creeping Jenny paired with a dark heuchera and than some toad lilies and Solomon seal. Add in some little mushroom pottery or a beautiful pot with some elephant ear. I have a small yard so this works for me
Thanks for sharing your design philosophy. You have mentioned some beautiful plant combinations. Those dark heuchera plants are stunning in the garden with bright colors. I love the idea of adding potted plants into an empty space in the border. Happy gardening!
I’ve come to realize over time that It’s really helpful to take note of the disappointing gaps in my gardens and to keep my eyes peeled for complementary flowers or foliage growing in our neighborhood to fill that need in real time. Unless a book or catalog states the specific location of the gardens in their photographs we can waste time, money, and energy, ordering plants that perform out of sync with our existing gardens. Often I find the perfect plant growing in another part of my gardens. Win/win.
So much wisdom here. I am keeping detailed notes on the gaps in the garden now in hopes to fix things up. It is definitely a win/win when you find the perfect plant for a gap that lives in another part of the garden. Thanks for watching.
So fascinating! Keeping track of what's blossoming at what time helps as well as taking pictures. Late summer/autumn is a challenge in Michigan. Instead of chrysanthemums, I have Japanese Anemones (be aware they spread), native blue Salvia azura along with a short Aromatic Aster [Symphyotrichum oblongifolium (say that fast)] that are wanderers but easily controlled, interspersed with some supervised stiff goldenrod (Solidago Rigida). The front yard garden is full of bees when they're all in blossom. Thank you, Sue, for all the time and research you put into this video.
Thank you and thanks for sharing your favorite combinations. I love Japanese anemones too even if they are spreaders. I'll have to look up your aster recommendations. Thanks.
After watching this video, you inspired my husband and I to take a walk through the Henry Ford Estate this afternoon. It's been such a long time since we visited here, which is a shame as it's such a gem and is only 20 minutes from where we live. Mark was a student at UMDearborn in the late 70s when the Estate belonged to UMD, and he and other engineering students volunteered to restore the power plant at the Estate. He and I also volunteered to decorate the inside with vintage Christmas decorations with UMD students. So our history there goes way back, and we hold a special place in our hearts, and wonderful memories of the Estate. Today I was happy to visit the blue garden which was just stunning and I took many pictures of the plant combinations. The rose garden was awaiting another flush, but very neat and well cared for, even if there wasn't a lot of color. We walked the entire property! Thank you for inspiring us to do this, it was a lovely day! (And sorry for the extremely long post)
Thanks so much for your note. I love visiting the Henry Ford Estate. Isn't it fun to imagine what life must have been like "back in the day" when you walk around the grounds? Thanks for sharing your adventures. It sounds like a wonderful visit. Now I want to go back and see the Blue garden.
What a treasure finding the landscape notes! My favorite garden is a combination of Vanilla strawberry hydrangeas, Bobo hydrangea, purple coneflower, Rosanne geranium, nepeta, little bluestem ornamental grass, lambs ears, and Olympia clematis. I do cut the Nepeta back after it's done with the first flowering and it has rebloomed.
Thank you. It was so exciting to find those planting notes in the archives. And the letters were fun to read as well. One of the letters Ellen Shipman wrote to Clara Ford included a request for Mrs. Ford to pay her invoice from the previous Spring. That made me laugh. Apparently being a small business owner hasn't changed much. Your garden sounds like a dream with the beautiful planting combinations you shared. Thanks so much.
Fascinating! Season long color is really the holy grail of gardening. I don't think I am disciplined enough to pull it off. My garden is a bit hodge podge. There are too many beautiful choices and I am weak.😊
You are right that season long color is the holy grail of gardening. I still have lots to learn. I think all gardeners feel a bit "weak" with all the choices we have. It makes it so much fun. Thanks for watching.
So interesting Sue. As always, a good view to history and how to apply to your garden. Shipman certainly brought a lot of knowledge forward. How lucky you were able to find the planting plans. Those letters were pure magic. Would love to read them. Road trip destination.
What a treasure you found in the planting notes! Thank you for sharing. Its lovely that the love of learning goes hand in hand with gardening.Right now in my garden I’m enjoying the combination of butterfly milkweed and anise hyssop. I think the orange and pretty purple along with the interesting shapes of blooms and plant structures is really fun and beautiful.
That sounds like a pretty combination. I have both plants so I think next spring I’ll put some of my butterfly weed seedlings next to the hyssop. Thanks!🌸
Hello from France Very interesting subject 🙏 In the moment my favorite combinations in the garden are : Persicaria Amplexicaulis Firetail + Selinium wallichianum😍💗💗💗 It's also Daucus Carota Dara from seeds + Verbena Bonariensis I love love love Clematis Princess Diana + Ampelopsis brevipedunculata Elegans climbing and intertwining on a gazebo I like Heuchera Wild Rose + Heuchera Pink Panther + ADIANTUM pedatum 'Imbricatum' The foliage mix is so beautiful ! I like Hydrangea involucrata Late Love + Persicaria Filiformis One pleasant combination in bright pink, purple and blue is Geranium Dragon's heart + Salvia Nemorosa Caradonna (several plants) + geranium Johnson blue That's all for today Thank you so much for your inspiring videos Take care xoxo Marie
I particularly like that you are working in umbellifers, which are a great way to add in color structure and height - while providing forage for our bees. The biennial Angelica gigas is what we landed on, because we garden in a colder clime here in New England… but it does take awhile to get going
Thank you for your answer, yes I particularly like umbellifers because they provide a wild effect and seem to highlight the plants around. I am very fond of Angelica gigas, it's a beautiful plant but it's an annual for me because my soil is very heavy clay. Can you keep it from year to year ?
Hello and welcome to the channel. Thank you for sharing so many wonderful plant combinations. There are several varieties you mention that I need to look up to learn more about them. That is what I love about the comment section. I learn so many wonderful gardening tips. Thanks for being here.
I am very grateful for all the videos you create and broadcast !😍 I f you can find Ampelopsis brevipedunculata Elegans, I highly recommend it because it has multiple interest with a very nice variegated foliage, bright pink stems matching perfectly with princess Diana Clematis and it has the perfectly stunning blue, green and purple small round fruits in autumn like porcelain pearls. (and very easy plant to grow) I also love the involucrata group for hydrangeas as they keep their color, whatever the soil is. The flowers are flat and delicate. Late Love is blue and white and match perfectly well with the very fine flowers of persicaria filiformis which is very discret but so delicate and lovely ( a must must have if you can find it). The quercifolia group is very interesting (Hydrangea quercifolia little Honey is a cute little one) I try to create different kinds of atmospheres in the garden. I am researching about ferns and learning how to use them (some are very dry resistant once established). Epimedium is a very good companion plant. ADIANTUM pedatum 'Imbricatum' is a small fern with green bright leaves unfolding like a fan, very nice with the pink foliage of heucheras. I also have a very nice shrub called Fothergilla intermedia Blue Shadow with an indescribable kind of metallic blue/gray foliage wonderful with Brunnera and it also has very colorful bright colors in autumn.
Your voice is perfect as a narrator ! You are so knowledgeable I appreciate your in depth study of historic gardens and how you make all us gardeners feel good about how difficult it is to have succession blooms! Mother Nature keeps us on our toes with her hot flas summer 😂especially for we gardeners who have been zone 5 for over 50 years and now 6b with over 90 degree days since May 😳. This week mid 80dsys and 69 night I’m wearing a jacket lol. Anyway I’ve been so inspired by you and your garden thank you so very much!! I’ll keep you posted a project inspired by you !
Thanks so much for the kind words of encouragement. You are right about nature keeping us on our toes. This season the deer are eating things they never eat so it is challenging and fun. Thanks for being here.
I love the videos that you create that highlight classic gardens, garden designers, and their techniques. These are so informative and inspiring. Thank you! My favorite combination this year is "Sunny Border Blue" veronica with Dusty Miller. It's a beautiful (and deer resistant) combination
Sue, I always enjoy your “lessons”. I love a backdrop of limelight prime hydrangeas combined with tall phlox, black eyed Susan, coneflowers, and daylilies.
Thank you! some very important planning information to keep in mind. My biggest challenge has been in finding the right location in the garden for my spring bulbs, and having other plants surrounding them to hide the bulb foliage as it dies off.
Thanks for watching. I know a lot of people dig their bulbs up after they bloom, but that is just too much work for me. I am also trying to learn how to hide that dying bulb foliage better. You are right. No easy task.
Wonderful video! My favorite new combo this year was Veronica Very Van Gogh and alchemilla mollis. I loved the contrast between foliages, and the mix of chartreuse and burgundy flowers.
What an interesting bit of research. Many of the plants in my garden are older varieties (like me LOL). With the yearly emphasis on “new” varieties you’d be hard pressed to find a nursery to buy many of the plants growing in my garden. It makes me sad to see older varieties slowly disappearing in favour of new but not always better ones. In England they have dedicated gardens given towards maintaining collections of all the varieties of a single plant type. Wish we had that here in North America.
I laughed when I read your note. You are right! I love the idea of maintaining collections of plants. It is fun to read the names of the perennials in the old planting plans to see what varieties they used. I love doing that with the tulips and daffodils especially. That is when you realize how many plants are no longer sold. There is a great resource for heirlooms that is located here in Mchigan (Ann Arbor) called Old House Gardens. I buy bulbs there. I once tried to recreate a planting combination I learned about from a famous Michigan gardener named Mrs. Francis King. She lived in Alma Michigan. Her house is still there and it is a funeral home now. They made her garden into a parking lot! I need to gather materials together to tell her story. It is incredible what I learned about her.
Great video, Sue! Don't you love finding those treasures! I love mixing airy plants like Gaura sparkle white with more structural plants like Kniphofia. Smaller better behaved varieties of Russian sage with purple coneflower and airy grasses.
Hi my dear friend thanks so much for sharing such a beautiful garden with us and so much great information on how to make it look fabulous hugs and kisses from grandma Sandy and Debbie. Thanks for sharing so much greater information on architectural gardens.
Right now my phlox, Heliopsis Summer Sun& Helenium are all very complementary. Loved this & many of your videos. Your knowledge and wonderful delivery make for an enjoyable and educational experience. Thank you! 🌺🌻🎊
Another great informative video. I find succession planting a difficult skill to master without having too many different varieties of perennials in my borders which can look messy, getting the balance right and having colour all year round is something I’ve forever working at. I do like the idea of one star plant for every month of the year and the rest of the planting complementary, a lot to think about 🤔
Thank you and thanks for watching. You are right! I continue to try to get year round interest, but still have a lot to master. I hope things are going well in the quarry garden. I'm looking forward to your next video.
Thank you for sharing such wonderful insight and history in all of your videos. I'm currently reworking my front garden to fill gaps and create greater swaths of plants. I'm finding yellows and purples to be my dominate colors currently, with is lovely going into fall. I'm enjoying the combination of rudbeckia and alliums.
You can access some of the Ford estate landscape plans from the online collection. This is the link www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections. The letters that I reference in the video are not online that I know of. I visited the archives in person and worked with the librarian to help me find all things related to Ellen Biddle Shipman. I am still surprised the bulb and perennial planting plans never appeared. They have to be somewhere. Henry Ford kept the receipts for the tiniest things so I can't imagine he didn't save those drawings.
I am very much a novice even though I have been gardening for almost 10 years. I’m still at the same success level I started at. I recently bought two potted three year old limelight hydrangeas. I broke two branches during the moving process. I watched your propagation video. I am going to try even though it is August, because why waste them? I love your videos, teaching technique and voice. Thank you so much.
Hi! I love your videos!! Which ones are your favorite plant combinations? I am enjoying the combination of the Russian sage and false sunflowers now 😊 I am a new gardener. We moved to a country house 3 years ago. We have lot of land. A lot of abandoned flower beds full of weeds and just a few plants alive. I have been trying to work in all of them but it is overwhelming when you have your own business and too young kids. I hope to have a garden one day as beautiful as yours ❤
I think you may also be inspired by the vegetable garden in a youtube video called A Country Garden Tour in German Valley II. Her plantings are a result of years in her garden, because she was a busy mother and wife also.
Thanks so much for your kind note. What a wonderful gift to have a country house with lots of room for a garden. I can't wait to hear what you create. My favorite plant combination right now is verbena bonariensis, heliopsis 'Burning Hearts', and the lemon-yellow blooming zinnia Queeny Lemon Peach. Those 3 plants look so happy together and the bees and butterflies are loving them.
Thank you for "dicovering" Ellen Biddle for me! I am ashamed to admit that I know next to nothing about American garden designers. I would love to learn more! PS. The edges of your lawn are immaculate, I will never ever achieve such perfection.
Thanks so much! I am glad to hear you enjoyed learning about Ellen Biddle Shipman. It was fun to research the archives to learn more about her. Thanks for watching.
I love this information Sue! Thank you My favorite is a late summer combo of white lacecap hydrangeas with hardy fuscia General Monk and blue Halcyon hosta. I wish I could say I planned it because I knew it would be stunning but NO. It was a happy accident. I love it when that happens. I garden in Portland Oregon zone 8b.
One thing that I find helpful is using flowering bushes such as hydrangea. I like the lacecap hydrangeas. This year I have a dwarf lacecap in a pot in among some yellow day lilies, which are giving me a second bloom for the first time.
That is a great suggestion. The other thing that is great about flowering bushes is they tend to be fairly low maintenance. Thank you for watching and thank you for sharing your plant recommendations.
Great ideas. The issues of succession planting become harder still with climate change. This year, many flowers bloomed early, and it made it hard to achieve this goal that I typically do get most of the season. Right now, black eyed Susan is dominating my landscape. The annual that is playing a supporting role is coleus. The other flower coming on at this time - again early, is my second blush of roses. This s usually happens in September.
Sue, what a great gardener you are. You inspire me to become expert with my garden also. Last night I was pulling bindweed, and do you know that I saw it releasing a POWDER into the air as I bent over it? The light from a nearby building highlighted the powder. This was happening again and again, so I stopped. I have asthma, and yes, last night although I showered and washed my hair, I was coughing etc. Do you know if bindweed also brings up a cloud of powder if pulled in the morning? Do you have any sources for info on noxious weeds? By the way, this video was a hit out of the park for me. THANK YOU for your research and your generous sharing!!!
Thanks for your kind note. I am afraid (and happy to report) I don't have experience with bindweed other than knowing it is a crazy week to get rid of. I am sorry to hear that plant is giving you issues. I appreciate your words of encouragement. Thanks for watching.
I have plenty of experience with bindweed, and have never noticed it giving off a powder. It just is a hydra and returns threefold where you pull it, and is nearly impossible to kill. It makes me wonder if yours didn’t have some sort of powdery mildew thing going on?
We had a brutal cold snap last winter and I lost a good sized rose bush. Threw all the seeds I actually had germinate inside in there, plus a yellow grape tomato from a friend. It’s pretty. Wine red cosmos, some white daisy style zinnia, 3 six inch yellow marigolds, a little holdover lavender and a background of Heavenly Blue morning glory. (Never had trouble with the stuff I planted. Field bindweed that floats in is another story.)
Thank you for this. I was lucky enough to grow up in a house with gardens that were designed by Ellen, they were magical. The original garden plans from 1920 were still in the house when we lived there, stuffed in my bathroom closet, along with many other treasures. I really wish I had kept them. Sadly developers purchased the property and are putting in a large multi unit housing development. It makes sick to my stomach. The house was the Mcginley Estate in Milton, MA
Oh my goodness. That must have been amazing to stumble upon those garden plans in the bathroom closet. Do you have photos of the garden? I found a reference to the plans for "Mrs. Holden McGinley" in the Cornell archives. They are not digital, but they have tons of items listed in the finding guide. This is the link rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM01259.html#s4ss141. How cool! Thanks so much for sharing that. I would love to see photos if you have any.
@GardenMoxie I do have photos somewhere, physical copies, I did have many digital but they were lost.I will look for you. There were also documents from Picasso who was friends with the people who owned the home before us. Also, so many handwritten notes from Mrs . McGinley, instructions to the staff, etc.. There was an elevator and a huge staff quarters. I can still feel and smell the house and gardens of that makes sense.
@GardenMoxie it was walled and terraced with multiple fish ponds, it was so well designed, blooms & color year round, I didn't appreciate it as a child as much as I do now.
Thank you for this amazing lesson. Now, I want to visit the Ford gardens. 😊 Been here all my life and I've never been there. I start with evergreens. Then flowering shrubs. My fav being panicula hydrangeas for their flowers all season, blue muffin the berries, golden jubilees for their color, and burning bush for fall color. Then peonies, Iris, tall garden phlox, guara, blanket flower, Salvia, and so many more.
I am glad to hear you enjoyed the video. I love visiting old homes and gardens. The Ford garden is a shell of its former self, but it is a great place to visit and explore. I think you will enjoy it. I hope the house re-opens again someday. They have been doing renovations for over 10 years.
the best garden is one that requires no effort: automatic watering, low-water plants that aren't too tall (large cost to cut stuff down over 20 feet tall) and that live a long time so no need to keep planting all the time, and need no maintenance (pruning, fertilizing, staking). because even with a 'no effort' garden, there will still always be way too much work to do, somehow, as all gardeners know
Not sure how it is any secret to use the flowers that bloom at their own times. Even when no one is thinking about designing at all, that just is what happens naturally. So spring being dominated by bulbs just happens, assuming there are bulb planted. No one is expecting hydrangeas or asters or mums to be carrying the show in the spring! The impact one kind flower can make during its bloom time needs to be weighed against space available and if you are willing to avoid looking at certain areas for long stretches of the season. You can't plant a huge number of irises or peonies and have them put on a show for very long. Their time of bloom is so short when compared to an entire growing season.
Thanks so much for your kind note. It was a lot of fun to try to figure out how the plants were placed in the Ford English garden using old plans, the letters from the archives and the old photos. That was the secret.
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You have a calm way of explaining things. And your vocabulary is grand. Love love love your videos. AND your garden is beautiful.
Thanks so much. I am glad to hear you enjoyed the video. I am a big fan of garden history so it is fun to share some things from the archives.
This type of gardening is really an art form ...I love history attached to horticulture. We can learn so much from past gardeners.
I agree! I am always inspired by learning about past gardeners and looking at images of their creations. Being able to create a border filled with color and blooms is an art form.
This is college-level research you’re doing - thank you for sharing it with us! 🌿💗
I'm glad to hear you liked the video. I just love garden history and the stories you can find in the archives. Thanks for watching.
My favorite combination this year is a grouping next to our lamppost: Clematis ‘Elsa Spath, Salvia ‘Caradonna, Salvia ‘Blue Hill, Buxus ‘Green Velvet and Stachys ‘Helen von Stein”. I garden in Virginia, Zone 7b. Love your videos Sue because they add an extra dimension to my enjoyment of gardening. I’m almost 70 years old and gardened with my Grandmother as a very young child. Gardening is as essential to my life as breathing. Thank you❤
Thanks so much. I love hearing the story of how you gardened with your Grandmother. What a wonderful memory. I am glad you liked the video.
Thank you Sue for sharing the research you did on this. Great video. 😎
Thanks so much. I appreciate your kind note.
My gardening style has become less broadly planted and focusing more on small vignettes. We all have microclimates throughout our gardens and I've been enjoying layering plants by placing a low ground cover than adding additional plants with contrasting colors. Creeping Jenny paired with a dark heuchera and than some toad lilies and Solomon seal. Add in some little mushroom pottery or a beautiful pot with some elephant ear.
I have a small yard so this works for me
Thanks for sharing your design philosophy. You have mentioned some beautiful plant combinations. Those dark heuchera plants are stunning in the garden with bright colors. I love the idea of adding potted plants into an empty space in the border. Happy gardening!
great sharing, wonderful💛💛
I’ve come to realize over time that It’s really helpful to take note of the disappointing gaps in my gardens and to keep my eyes peeled for complementary flowers or foliage growing in our neighborhood to fill that need in real time. Unless a book or catalog states the specific location of the gardens in their photographs we can waste time, money, and energy, ordering plants that perform out of sync with our existing gardens. Often I find the perfect plant growing in another part of my gardens. Win/win.
So much wisdom here. I am keeping detailed notes on the gaps in the garden now in hopes to fix things up. It is definitely a win/win when you find the perfect plant for a gap that lives in another part of the garden. Thanks for watching.
So fascinating! Keeping track of what's blossoming at what time helps as well as taking pictures. Late summer/autumn is a challenge in Michigan. Instead of chrysanthemums, I have Japanese Anemones (be aware they spread), native blue Salvia azura along with a short Aromatic Aster [Symphyotrichum oblongifolium (say that fast)] that are wanderers but easily controlled, interspersed with some supervised stiff goldenrod (Solidago Rigida). The front yard garden is full of bees when they're all in blossom. Thank you, Sue, for all the time and research you put into this video.
Thank you and thanks for sharing your favorite combinations. I love Japanese anemones too even if they are spreaders. I'll have to look up your aster recommendations. Thanks.
The blue with the golden rod sounds beautiful! 🌸
My combination of Russian sage blooms and the alliums bordering the sage in the tight balls of purple look lovely together.
That is a great combination. My Mom grew Russian sage at her lake house and it was a great late-season bloomer. The added bonus were all the bees.
After watching this video, you inspired my husband and I to take a walk through the Henry Ford Estate this afternoon. It's been such a long time since we visited here, which is a shame as it's such a gem and is only 20 minutes from where we live. Mark was a student at UMDearborn in the late 70s when the Estate belonged to UMD, and he and other engineering students volunteered to restore the power plant at the Estate. He and I also volunteered to decorate the inside with vintage Christmas decorations with UMD students. So our history there goes way back, and we hold a special place in our hearts, and wonderful memories of the Estate.
Today I was happy to visit the blue garden which was just stunning and I took many pictures of the plant combinations. The rose garden was awaiting another flush, but very neat and well cared for, even if there wasn't a lot of color. We walked the entire property! Thank you for inspiring us to do this, it was a lovely day! (And sorry for the extremely long post)
Thanks so much for your note. I love visiting the Henry Ford Estate. Isn't it fun to imagine what life must have been like "back in the day" when you walk around the grounds? Thanks for sharing your adventures. It sounds like a wonderful visit. Now I want to go back and see the Blue garden.
What a treasure finding the landscape notes! My favorite garden is a combination of Vanilla strawberry hydrangeas, Bobo hydrangea, purple coneflower, Rosanne geranium, nepeta, little bluestem ornamental grass, lambs ears, and Olympia clematis. I do cut the Nepeta back after it's done with the first flowering and it has rebloomed.
That sounds gorgeous! Love those shades. I’m guessing the Olympia is wine or lilac or pink? Maybe white?
It's like a periwinkle color with large blooms!
Thank you. It was so exciting to find those planting notes in the archives. And the letters were fun to read as well. One of the letters Ellen Shipman wrote to Clara Ford included a request for Mrs. Ford to pay her invoice from the previous Spring. That made me laugh. Apparently being a small business owner hasn't changed much. Your garden sounds like a dream with the beautiful planting combinations you shared. Thanks so much.
Fascinating! Season long color is really the holy grail of gardening. I don't think I am disciplined enough to pull it off. My garden is a bit hodge podge. There are too many beautiful choices and I am weak.😊
You are right that season long color is the holy grail of gardening. I still have lots to learn. I think all gardeners feel a bit "weak" with all the choices we have. It makes it so much fun. Thanks for watching.
So interesting Sue. As always, a good view to history and how to apply to your garden. Shipman certainly brought a lot of knowledge forward. How lucky you were able to find the planting plans. Those letters were pure magic. Would love to read them. Road trip destination.
Hi Jo and thanks for your note. I appreciate you watching the video friend. Those letters were so fun!
What a treasure you found in the planting notes! Thank you for sharing. Its lovely that the love of learning goes hand in hand with gardening.Right now in my garden I’m enjoying the combination of butterfly milkweed and anise hyssop. I think the orange and pretty purple along with the interesting shapes of blooms and plant structures is really fun and beautiful.
Thank you. I love purple and orange together too. That sounds like a great combination.
That sounds like a pretty combination. I have both plants so I think next spring I’ll put some of my butterfly weed seedlings next to the hyssop. Thanks!🌸
Hello from France
Very interesting subject 🙏
In the moment my favorite combinations in the garden are :
Persicaria Amplexicaulis Firetail + Selinium wallichianum😍💗💗💗
It's also Daucus Carota Dara from seeds + Verbena Bonariensis
I love love love Clematis Princess Diana + Ampelopsis brevipedunculata Elegans
climbing and intertwining on a gazebo
I like Heuchera Wild Rose + Heuchera Pink Panther + ADIANTUM pedatum 'Imbricatum'
The foliage mix is so beautiful !
I like Hydrangea involucrata Late Love + Persicaria Filiformis
One pleasant combination in bright pink, purple and blue is Geranium Dragon's heart + Salvia Nemorosa Caradonna (several plants) + geranium Johnson blue
That's all for today
Thank you so much for your inspiring videos
Take care xoxo Marie
I particularly like that you are working in umbellifers, which are a great way to add in color structure and height - while providing forage for our bees. The biennial Angelica gigas is what we landed on, because we garden in a colder clime here in New England… but it does take awhile to get going
Merci bien
Thank you for your answer, yes I particularly like umbellifers because they provide a wild effect and seem to highlight the plants around. I am very fond of Angelica gigas, it's a beautiful plant but it's an annual for me because my soil is very heavy clay. Can you keep it from year to year ?
Hello and welcome to the channel. Thank you for sharing so many wonderful plant combinations. There are several varieties you mention that I need to look up to learn more about them. That is what I love about the comment section. I learn so many wonderful gardening tips. Thanks for being here.
I am very grateful for all the videos you create and broadcast !😍
I f you can find Ampelopsis brevipedunculata Elegans, I highly recommend it because it has multiple interest with a very nice variegated foliage, bright pink stems matching perfectly with princess Diana Clematis and it has the perfectly stunning blue, green and purple small round fruits in autumn like porcelain pearls. (and very easy plant to grow)
I also love the involucrata group for hydrangeas as they keep their color, whatever the soil is. The flowers are flat and delicate.
Late Love is blue and white and match perfectly well with the very fine flowers of persicaria filiformis
which is very discret but so delicate and lovely ( a must must have if you can find it). The quercifolia group is very interesting (Hydrangea quercifolia little Honey is a cute little one)
I try to create different kinds of atmospheres in the garden.
I am researching about ferns and learning how to use them (some are very dry resistant once established). Epimedium is a very good companion plant.
ADIANTUM pedatum 'Imbricatum' is a small fern with green bright leaves unfolding like a fan, very nice with the pink foliage of heucheras.
I also have a very nice shrub called Fothergilla intermedia Blue Shadow with an indescribable kind of metallic blue/gray foliage wonderful with Brunnera and it also has very colorful bright colors in autumn.
Your voice is perfect as a narrator ! You are so knowledgeable I appreciate your in depth study of historic gardens and how you make all us gardeners feel good about how difficult it is to have succession blooms!
Mother Nature keeps us on our toes with her hot flas summer 😂especially for we gardeners who have been zone 5 for over 50 years and now 6b with over 90 degree days since May 😳. This week mid 80dsys and 69 night I’m wearing a jacket lol. Anyway I’ve been so inspired by you and your garden thank you so very much!!
I’ll keep you posted a project inspired by you !
Thanks so much for the kind words of encouragement. You are right about nature keeping us on our toes. This season the deer are eating things they never eat so it is challenging and fun. Thanks for being here.
I love the videos that you create that highlight classic gardens, garden designers, and their techniques. These are so informative and inspiring. Thank you!
My favorite combination this year is "Sunny Border Blue" veronica with Dusty Miller. It's a beautiful (and deer resistant) combination
Thank you. That sounds like a great combination. Dusty Miller is a great deer resistant plant and it would look great with purples.
Thanks for sharing your research and insight. Happy gardening!
Thanks for watching and happy gardening to you too!
Sue, I always enjoy your “lessons”. I love a backdrop of limelight prime hydrangeas combined with tall phlox, black eyed Susan, coneflowers, and daylilies.
Hi Peggy. Thank you for the kind note and thanks so much for sharing your recommended plant combinations. That sounds incredible!
This video is absolutely amazing. Now that I have a blank canvas, I'm going to attempt the same strategies. Thank you very much for sharing.
Thank you. I am glad to hear you enjoyed the video.
Your garden is absolutely beautiful !!! ❤❤❤
Thanks so much and thanks for watching.
This was such a great video! Informative and lots of research done we appreciate it! Love from zone 7a
Thanks so much. I am glad you enjoyed the video.
Thank you! some very important planning information to keep in mind. My biggest challenge has been in finding the right location in the garden for my spring bulbs, and having other plants surrounding them to hide the bulb foliage as it dies off.
Thanks for watching. I know a lot of people dig their bulbs up after they bloom, but that is just too much work for me. I am also trying to learn how to hide that dying bulb foliage better. You are right. No easy task.
Wonderful video! My favorite new combo this year was Veronica Very Van Gogh and alchemilla mollis. I loved the contrast between foliages, and the mix of chartreuse and burgundy flowers.
Thank you. I am not familiar with that veronica so I am excited to look it up. Thanks for sharing your recommendation.
What an interesting bit of research. Many of the plants in my garden are older varieties (like me LOL). With the yearly emphasis on “new” varieties you’d be hard pressed to find a nursery to buy many of the plants growing in my garden. It makes me sad to see older varieties slowly disappearing in favour of new but not always better ones. In England they have dedicated gardens given towards maintaining collections of all the varieties of a single plant type. Wish we had that here in North America.
I laughed when I read your note. You are right! I love the idea of maintaining collections of plants. It is fun to read the names of the perennials in the old planting plans to see what varieties they used. I love doing that with the tulips and daffodils especially. That is when you realize how many plants are no longer sold. There is a great resource for heirlooms that is located here in Mchigan (Ann Arbor) called Old House Gardens. I buy bulbs there. I once tried to recreate a planting combination I learned about from a famous Michigan gardener named Mrs. Francis King. She lived in Alma Michigan. Her house is still there and it is a funeral home now. They made her garden into a parking lot! I need to gather materials together to tell her story. It is incredible what I learned about her.
Wonderful and informative! Thank you!
Thank you and thanks for watching.
Fantastic video ! 🌺
Thanks so much. I am glad you enjoyed the video.
Just LOVELY! Thank you!
Thanks so much for watching.
Great video!❤
Glad you liked it!!
Great video, Sue! Don't you love finding those treasures! I love mixing airy plants like Gaura sparkle white with more structural plants like Kniphofia. Smaller better behaved varieties of Russian sage with purple coneflower and airy grasses.
Thank you. Those are great combinations. I love gaura too. I love to watch the bumble bees swaying up and down on the flowers. Thanks for watching.
What a unique video. I loved all the tips!
Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
Hi my dear friend thanks so much for sharing such a beautiful garden with us and so much great information on how to make it look fabulous hugs and kisses from grandma Sandy and Debbie. Thanks for sharing so much greater information on architectural gardens.
Thanks so much. I am glad to hear you both enjoyed the video.
Right now my phlox, Heliopsis Summer Sun& Helenium are all very complementary. Loved this & many of your videos. Your knowledge and wonderful delivery make for an enjoyable and educational experience. Thank you! 🌺🌻🎊
Thanks so much. You plant combination that you shared sounds wonderful. This is such a great time of the year for flowers, isn't it?
Another great informative video. I find succession planting a difficult skill to master without having too many different varieties of perennials in my borders which can look messy, getting the balance right and having colour all year round is something I’ve forever working at. I do like the idea of one star plant for every month of the year and the rest of the planting complementary, a lot to think about 🤔
Thank you and thanks for watching. You are right! I continue to try to get year round interest, but still have a lot to master. I hope things are going well in the quarry garden. I'm looking forward to your next video.
Thank you for sharing such wonderful insight and history in all of your videos. I'm currently reworking my front garden to fill gaps and create greater swaths of plants. I'm finding yellows and purples to be my dominate colors currently, with is lovely going into fall. I'm enjoying the combination of rudbeckia and alliums.
Thanks for watching. I am glad to hear you enjoyed the video. That combination of rudbeckia and alliums sounds wonderful.
Could you please link to her plan? I would like to have it for my garden diaries.
You can access some of the Ford estate landscape plans from the online collection. This is the link www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections. The letters that I reference in the video are not online that I know of. I visited the archives in person and worked with the librarian to help me find all things related to Ellen Biddle Shipman. I am still surprised the bulb and perennial planting plans never appeared. They have to be somewhere. Henry Ford kept the receipts for the tiniest things so I can't imagine he didn't save those drawings.
I am very much a novice even though I have been gardening for almost 10 years. I’m still at the same success level I started at. I recently bought two potted three year old limelight hydrangeas. I broke two branches during the moving process. I watched your propagation video. I am going to try even though it is August, because why waste them?
I love your videos, teaching technique and voice. Thank you so much.
Thanks so much for the words of encouragement. I definitely would try propagating those hydrangea branches. Nature never ceases to amaze me!
Hi! I love your videos!! Which ones are your favorite plant combinations? I am enjoying the combination of the Russian sage and false sunflowers now 😊
I am a new gardener. We moved to a country house 3 years ago. We have lot of land. A lot of abandoned flower beds full of weeds and just a few plants alive. I have been trying to work in all of them but it is overwhelming when you have your own business and too young kids. I hope to have a garden one day as beautiful as yours ❤
I think you may also be inspired by the vegetable garden in a youtube video called A Country Garden Tour in German Valley II. Her plantings are a result of years in her garden, because she was a busy mother and wife also.
You may find the book "The Five Minute Garden" by Laetitia Maklouf very helpful. She's a single, working mother of three.
Thanks so much for your kind note. What a wonderful gift to have a country house with lots of room for a garden. I can't wait to hear what you create. My favorite plant combination right now is verbena bonariensis, heliopsis 'Burning Hearts', and the lemon-yellow blooming zinnia Queeny Lemon Peach. Those 3 plants look so happy together and the bees and butterflies are loving them.
Thank you for "dicovering" Ellen Biddle for me! I am ashamed to admit that I know next to nothing about American garden designers. I would love to learn more! PS. The edges of your lawn are immaculate, I will never ever achieve such perfection.
Thanks so much! I am glad to hear you enjoyed learning about Ellen Biddle Shipman. It was fun to research the archives to learn more about her. Thanks for watching.
Great video with wonderful insights and information 🐝
Thanks so much. I am glad you enjoyed the video.
Your gardens are beautiful. May I ask, why did you pull the hydrangea stems, did you propagate them?
Thanks so much. I needed to dig up a ton of the Annabelle hydrangeas because they were taking over that flower border.
I love this information Sue! Thank you
My favorite is a late summer combo of white lacecap hydrangeas with hardy fuscia General Monk and blue Halcyon hosta. I wish I could say I planned it because I knew it would be stunning but NO. It was a happy accident. I love it when that happens. I garden in Portland Oregon zone 8b.
Hi Shelley and thanks for sharing that combination. I love those happy accidents too. So fun!
One thing that I find helpful is using flowering bushes such as hydrangea. I like the lacecap hydrangeas. This year I have a dwarf lacecap in a pot in among some yellow day lilies, which are giving me a second bloom for the first time.
That is a great suggestion. The other thing that is great about flowering bushes is they tend to be fairly low maintenance. Thank you for watching and thank you for sharing your plant recommendations.
Great ideas. The issues of succession planting become harder still with climate change. This year, many flowers bloomed early, and it made it hard to achieve this goal that I typically do get most of the season. Right now, black eyed Susan is dominating my landscape. The annual that is playing a supporting role is coleus. The other flower coming on at this time - again early, is my second blush of roses. This s usually happens in September.
Thanks for sharing the great combination ideas. And thanks for watching the video.
Sue, what a great gardener you are. You inspire me to become expert with my garden also. Last night I was pulling bindweed, and do you know that I saw it releasing a POWDER into the air as I bent over it? The light from a nearby building highlighted the powder. This was happening again and again, so I stopped. I have asthma, and yes, last night although I showered and washed my hair, I was coughing etc. Do you know if bindweed also brings up a cloud of powder if pulled in the morning? Do you have any sources for info on noxious weeds? By the way, this video was a hit out of the park for me. THANK YOU for your research and your generous sharing!!!
Thanks for your kind note. I am afraid (and happy to report) I don't have experience with bindweed other than knowing it is a crazy week to get rid of. I am sorry to hear that plant is giving you issues. I appreciate your words of encouragement. Thanks for watching.
I have plenty of experience with bindweed, and have never noticed it giving off a powder. It just is a hydra and returns threefold where you pull it, and is nearly impossible to kill. It makes me wonder if yours didn’t have some sort of powdery mildew thing going on?
We had a brutal cold snap last winter and I lost a good sized rose bush. Threw all the seeds I actually had germinate inside in there, plus a yellow grape tomato from a friend. It’s pretty. Wine red cosmos, some white daisy style zinnia, 3 six inch yellow marigolds, a little holdover lavender and a background of Heavenly Blue morning glory. (Never had trouble with the stuff I planted. Field bindweed that floats in is another story.)
Thanks so much for sharing what you are planting in your garden.
Thank you for this. I was lucky enough to grow up in a house with gardens that were designed by Ellen, they were magical. The original garden plans from 1920 were still in the house when we lived there, stuffed in my bathroom closet, along with many other treasures. I really wish I had kept them. Sadly developers purchased the property and are putting in a large multi unit housing development. It makes sick to my stomach. The house was the Mcginley Estate in Milton, MA
Oh my goodness. That must have been amazing to stumble upon those garden plans in the bathroom closet. Do you have photos of the garden? I found a reference to the plans for "Mrs. Holden McGinley" in the Cornell archives. They are not digital, but they have tons of items listed in the finding guide. This is the link
rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM01259.html#s4ss141. How cool! Thanks so much for sharing that. I would love to see photos if you have any.
@GardenMoxie I do have photos somewhere, physical copies, I did have many digital but they were lost.I will look for you. There were also documents from Picasso who was friends with the people who owned the home before us. Also, so many handwritten notes from Mrs . McGinley, instructions to the staff, etc.. There was an elevator and a huge staff quarters. I can still feel and smell the house and gardens of that makes sense.
@GardenMoxie it was walled and terraced with multiple fish ponds, it was so well designed, blooms & color year round, I didn't appreciate it as a child as much as I do now.
@@MerryandBeau Oh my goodness. It sounds amazing.
@@MerryandBeau What a great story. I love this kind of stuff. Thanks for sharing your happy memories of that Ellen Shipman garden.
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Thanks for watching.
Thank you for this amazing lesson. Now, I want to visit the Ford gardens. 😊 Been here all my life and I've never been there.
I start with evergreens. Then flowering shrubs. My fav being panicula hydrangeas for their flowers all season, blue muffin the berries, golden jubilees for their color, and burning bush for fall color. Then peonies, Iris, tall garden phlox, guara, blanket flower, Salvia, and so many more.
I am glad to hear you enjoyed the video. I love visiting old homes and gardens. The Ford garden is a shell of its former self, but it is a great place to visit and explore. I think you will enjoy it. I hope the house re-opens again someday. They have been doing renovations for over 10 years.
the best garden is one that requires no effort: automatic watering, low-water plants that aren't too tall (large cost to cut stuff down over 20 feet tall) and that live a long time so no need to keep planting all the time, and need no maintenance (pruning, fertilizing, staking). because even with a 'no effort' garden, there will still always be way too much work to do, somehow, as all gardeners know
Great recommendations. Those low water requiring plants are the best for sure. Thanks for watching.
Not sure how it is any secret to use the flowers that bloom at their own times. Even when no one is thinking about designing at all, that just is what happens naturally. So spring being dominated by bulbs just happens, assuming there are bulb planted. No one is expecting hydrangeas or asters or mums to be carrying the show in the spring!
The impact one kind flower can make during its bloom time needs to be weighed against space available and if you are willing to avoid looking at certain areas for long stretches of the season. You can't plant a huge number of irises or peonies and have them put on a show for very long. Their time of bloom is so short when compared to an entire growing season.
Thanks so much for your kind note. It was a lot of fun to try to figure out how the plants were placed in the Ford English garden using old plans, the letters from the archives and the old photos. That was the secret.
Everything is looking amazing Sue 🪴🌸🪴
Thank you Jasmine and thanks for watching. Happy gardening!