Yew Dell Botanical Gardens $5M castle improvement project
Kentucky’s tiniest castle gets a $5 million royal facelift at Yew Dell Botanical Gardens. Take a peek.
Gardeners can create year-round interest by selecting plants for all four seasons.Daffodils come in early, mid, and late-blooming varieties for a prolonged spring display.Foliage from plants like coleus and Japanese forest grass can provide summer-long color.Fall-blooming bulbs, such as saffron crocus and colchicums, add late-season surprises.Witchhazels, snowdrops, and winter aconite can provide color and fragrance in winter gardens.
I think my wife must have been born with flippers instead of hands and feet. She’s always been a beach person. Sun, water, and sand are her tonics. Sea food, saltwater taffy, and pina coladas, her favorite food groups. Me, I’ve never been much of a beach guy.
A few decades ago, after years of bugging me to go south for a stretch to break up the cold and the snow — and me vehemently resisting — we came to one of those points so many couples face in their lives. She came home from work one day and said, “I’m going to the beach this winter for a couple of weeks. Sure would be more fun if you came along too.”
Message received.
As you can imagine, we’ve now been taking a palm tree break from winter for about 30 years.
So what does a plant guy from New York City, living in the Ohio River Valley, do for a couple of weeks in the land of paper-umbrella-adorned drinks? Check out the local plants, of course.
First, an observation. The tropics have a lot going for them. No stepping off the sidewalk into a puddle of slush that overtops your work shoes, soaking your socks for the rest of the day. No endless gray days and frozen or soupy soil. But as with so many things in life, there’s also a drawback. Too much of a good thing can make it all lose some of its sparkle.
Take, for instance, the plants. Sure, palm trees make great vacation photos. Some of them provide the stuff for pretty good pina coladas, as well. But there’s not much change from day to day, or week to week, or month to month. I guess if it’s paradise, why change?
But, I want four seasons in a garden. So, in celebration of those four seasons, here are a few tips on how to get the most out of your garden at all four corners of the calendar.
What to know about planting daffodils in the spring garden
Anticipation is half the joy. But in the end, anticipation leaves the plate half empty.
For most of us, daffodils serve as one of those constant signs of spring. Yet if we leave it to a last minute purchase of whatever daffodil bulbs happen to be sitting at the garden center checkout counter last thing in the fall, we miss a ton of potential.
There are thousands of varieties of daffodils on the market. They range from the tiniest and daintiest, topping out at just six inches tall, to the big, bodacious lunkers that flirt with knee-high. They come in yellow, of course, but also green and white and pink. There are singles, doubles and more.
But what many gardeners miss is that daffodils come in early, mid, and late blooming varieties. The earliest daffodil to bloom in my Kentucky garden is ‘February Gold’ (sometimes as early as December) and the latest is ‘Pheasant Eye’ that in a cool spring can flirt with early May.
What to plant in the summer garden
One spring, years ago, I was visiting a friend and commented on the fabulous show in her garden. Her response? “Anyone can have a good garden in spring. Show me a good summer display and I’ll show you a good gardener.”
Planning a quality summer-long display in the garden is tough. It’s a long season with heat and drought and bugs and such. Coming up with the right mix of plants and getting the timing just right can be a challenge. That’s where foliage can come to the rescue.
Combining and contrasting foliage colors and textures takes a lot of the guesswork out of summer garden planning. In shade, hostas, ferns, and even some of the shade grasses can carry you through the warmer months in style. One of the most useful shade grasses for brightening up a summer garden is the yellow-leafed form of Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘All Gold’). Growing about two feet tall and three feet wide, its delicate blades arch and flutter in the breeze to great effect.
If sun is your chosen garden situation, you have just as many options. Years ago, coleus (forget about botanical names for this one – the taxonomists are at it again!) used to be these puny little things that produced wimpy little green leaves with some white and pink in the center. And if you said the word “sun” in too loud a voice, they would wilt and die. Today’s coleus are big and bold and come in a dizzying array of leaf forms and colors. Coleus ‘Red Head’ in my garden a few years ago reached about 42 inches tall and looked more like a burning bush in fall color than an annual.
What to plant in the autumn garden
This is the perfect time to throw a few surprises into the garden. Shortening days and cooling temps throw all kinds of signs to plants. And gardeners can take advantage of those changes to make sure the garden season ends with a bang rather than a whimper.
Fall-blooming bulbs add a fun bit of punch to the autumn garden. From mid latitudes, south (USDA cold hardiness zones 6-9) saffron crocus (C. sativus) makes a nice display of pale lavender to white. And if you play your cards right, you can even harvest a little saffron for the kitchen. The fall-blooming colchicums (sometimes mistakenly called fall crocus) including Colchicum autumnale make a stunning display of rose pink — much larger than the traditional crocus.
There are also fall-blooming garden mums that make a huge splash in the garden with colors ranging from white to yellow, red, orange, and purple. They offer a feast for late-season pollinators.
What to grow in a winter garden in the south
Finally, winter, the much-overlooked garden season. So far this winter, which has been a beast in my Kentucky garden, I’ve had two witchhazels (Hamamelis species and hybrids) bloom, their delicate, straplike flowers filling the garden with their fragrance. Along the south-facing bits of my garden the daintiest of bulbs, snowdrops (Galanthus species and hybrids) already popped up their delicate, drooping white blooms and fresh, green foliage. Even the cheerful, bright yellow winter aconite (Eranthus hyemalis) that have crept out into the lawn have popped open a few of their cheerful yellow blooms just a few inches above the frozen soil.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to run out and shift my wife’s beach umbrella. The sun’s crept in a bit and it seems her drink is melting faster than desired.
Paul Cappiello is the executive director at Yew Dell Botanical Gardens, 6220 Old Lagrange Road, yewdellgardens.org.
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