Tips & Ideas to have an Abundant Garden | Garden Home (110)

On this episode of Garden Home, host P. Allen Smith will discuss tips & ideas to have an abundant garden. From planting native plants and wildflowers in big garden spaces to designing containers with plenty of flowers, Allen will give you the best ideas for your garden home to flourish.

Topics Include
American Style Gardens
Mt. Vernon Garden Tour
Colonial Williamsburg Garden History
Chicago Botanic Garden Tour
Planting with Abundance
Designing Containers with Abundance
Tips to Plant Abundantly
Sharing Garden Bounty
Propagating Hydrangeas
Planting Wildflowers
Native Plants and Flowers

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Gilbert H. Wild and Son – America’s Favorite Flower Farm and Nursery:

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P. Allen Smith is a landscape and garden designer, horticulturist, preservationist and television host. His passions span the subjects of community, health, sustainability and history. He has designed the grounds at many of the nation’s most notable estate properties, townhomes, and commercial complexes. And, for over 19 years, he has shared his green knowledge and insight with the public via ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, his own PBS television, and six book titles. Currently, Allen is focused on residential, commercial and community designs that are beautiful, improve our contentedness, and our social and physical health.

To learn more about:
…Allen’s horticultural interests and secrets, sign up for his weekly newsletter: https://pallensmith.com/

…visiting Allen’s Garden Home above the Arkansas River, see https://pallensmith.com/tours/

….Allen’s favorite plants mentioned in his social media, see: To review many of the plants Allen mentions in his posts and that are planted in his own garden, see https://pallensmith.com/gilbert-h-wild-allens-favorites/

….retaining Allen’s Garden and Landscape design firm, see http://www.pallensmithandassociates.com/

…Allen’s Garden Home-inspired intergenerational community in Monroe, LA, see https://www.gardensofsomerset.com/

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We’re Criss crossing the country and traveling the globe to find ideas for planting with abundance right after this over the past 20 years as a garden designer I’ve enjoyed helping homeowners create private sanctuaries full of beauty and wonder I find each garden to be a fresh opportunity to explore ways to create

Uniquely personal spaces these are just a few of the gardens I’ve helped to transform into garden hose Just look at all of these beautiful flowers hi I’m Alan Smith and welcome to the garden home where you’ll find practical ideas beautiful landscapes and much much more to help inspire you to push the boundaries of your home right out into the garden to the edges of your

Property now today’s show we’re going to focus on abundance and there’s no better place to get excited or inspired by the bounty of the garden than in a garden center or nursery like this when we plant with gusto or abandon the results can be outstanding and don’t think you

Have to have a large space to plant like this the same results can be achieved by packing in plants and small gardens or even containers now we’ll get to that a little later but first I wanted to go over a few terms that you’ll hear throughout the show the first is garden

Home now garden home is simply a garden that is an extension of the inside of your home which extends your living space whether it’s a garden that allows you to dine outdoors our garden that provides you with beautiful flowers to bring in for bouquets or even delicious

Herbs for cooking the garden home is all about enjoying and utilizing the space in and around your home I like to break the garden home down into garden rooms or small manageable spaces for instance in my garden I’ve enclosed my fountain garden with a Holly hedge you can see

How this part of the garden is both an extension of the home and a small garden all its own now when I create garden rooms for a garden home I always fall back on my 12 principles of design it makes the task so much easier now as you

Might have guessed today’s topic is on abundance and that’s one of the principles we’re also going to talk about another principle called time I don’t mean time in the what hour of the day is of time I’m talking about history a little garden history we’re going to

Look back and see how European style has influenced American gardens with regard to planting with abundance like Mount Vernon just outside Washington DC let’s take a look If you’re interested in getting some good ideas for your garden one of the best ways to do it is to visit some really great ones like Mount Vernon you’ll find that George Washington was not only the father of our country he also loved farming and gardens and you

Can’t forget Martha she was an enthusiastic gardener as well and she ran the place most of the time this is the upper garden or the pleasure garden and it was laid out in 1785 and it’s full of all sorts of things from Europe and native plants from around this area

Many of these plants are still popular today because they’re so tough and easy to grow some of the annuals grown here are Larkspur and poppies as well as this interesting flower called love and a mist as for perennials there are peonies bell flowers and this bright orange one

Called maltese cross you can’t believe the aroma in this garden thanks to these beautiful roses a garden like this was a luxury back then now Martha and George certainly appreciated the beauty of flowers but it was useful plants edible plants like herbs and vegetables that played an

Even larger role here and they’re still growing them here today let’s take a look vegetables were grown for obvious reasons everyone likes to eat and herbs were a big part of the vegetable garden not only for the table but as borders around the vegetable beds like these and

The variety they grew here was amazing the gardens of Mount Vernon are certainly abundant full of vegetables flowers herbs trees and shrubs annuals and perennials why our first president and first lady seemed to be interested in growing just about everything not so far from Mount Vernon as Williamsburg Virginia Colonial Williamsburg was once

Home to early American ideas of independence and democracy this historic town has been restored to preserve our colonial past a snapshot if you will of 18th century life today it’s a living and working town on over 300 acres with more than 500 historic buildings what’s interesting to me about this early

American colony is that its landscape and gardens were influenced as much by Dutch high style as it was by the English Laura Vancouver with the Colonial Williamsburg foundation tells us more Laura do you find that visitors have become more interested in the gardens here at Colonial Williamsburg obvious

People really do enjoy gardens and enjoy coming here for the gardens any time of year I mean here we are in December the gardens are great although there’s not a lot of color the structure and the design of these gardens are so strong because of their Dutch English influence

When Williamsburg became the capital William and Mary were on the throne in William being from Holland and Mary from England they combined their gardening styles when we get that Dutch English influence here and it lingered very long in the colonies because it was so structured very symmetrical and linear

And it gave a sense of control to the colonists because what was here was wilderness which scared them so that Dutch English very orderly garden was very popular here long into the 1700s although the gardens were very orderly in their arrangement the arrangement of the plants within were mixed colonists

Didn’t segregate plants like we’d like to with our herb gardens and our rose gardens they were combining these various plants and even in The Pleasure Gardens you would have fruit trees and herbs things we typically think about in our kitchen gardens and I believe that’s one way the colonists combatted pest

Problems just like organic gardeners do today was mixing different plants up when visiting gardens throughout Virginia if there was one signature plant it seems that it would be the boxwood boxwood is the the primary plant here in Williamsburg and so many guests come here saying that they have boxwood

In their gardens now because of that but that goes back again to King William’s influence because he loved topiary he used boxwood because it sheared so well and he would create these very tight edgings of boxwood to etch the part ears the gardens would not be the same without the boxwood definitely The history of gardens in this country has certainly been influenced by gardening trends from Europe but a recent visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden proves that American garden designers are making their mark on the world gardening community with a style specializing in natural landscapes you see they’ve dedicated a 5 acre garden to

A new approach to gardening it’s called the new American style of gardening it’s characterized by being informal and relaxed metal like in its planting it features a wide variety of perennials and ornamental grasses just look at this exceptional drift of color set against a background of ornamental grasses here we

Have Peruvian verbena or I like to call it verbena on a stick towering above the spiked gay feather and an under planting of white carpet roses the white rose blossoms will glisten at dusk of course this new American style of gardening isn’t limited just a palette of native

Plants plants from all over the world are used you see it’s really more about how the plant feels in the landscape certainly the plants have to offer color and texture through the seasons and movement is also important of course most of us don’t have this much space to

Garden in this style but you can come to a place like the Chicago Botanic Garden and get wonderful ideas on plant combinations to try on your own garden This new American garden style is about planting with abundance one of my 12 principles of garden design one of the best examples I’ve seen of planting with abundance is the flower fields in Carlsbad California the color display is outrageous you’re looking at 50 acres of extraordinary color in bloom on a

Hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean this idea of planting with abundance really should be credited to mother nature you see if we look at natural settings we often find plants growing in colonies or drifts now if we take this idea into our own gardens our plantings will look more spontaneous and natural

Let me use a favorite spring flower the daffodil to illustrate my point when planted and naturalized drifts these flowers look right at home but when singled out in isolated pockets the plants seem artificial and contrived a more relaxed planting style where plants are arranged in groupings of 3 5 7 or

Even more is generally more pleasing to our eye than plants line too rigidly along the edges of a bed or lawn now there’s no better way to get i popping color in your garden than to plant generously with lots of annuals some of the best for this effect are petunias

And impatience geraniums in verbena well I guess what I’m trying to say here is that as a garden designer I’ve discovered that making Gardens is often about making bold statements now I know the flower fields is an extreme example of this after all who has 50 acres of

That kind of color what I’ve discovered is no matter what size area you have to work with you can always fill it with lots of color I find that in limited space one of the best ways to do this is just to use containers I’d love to come to garden centers and nurseries like this to see what’s in bloom to come up with new and interesting combinations now here’s an idea for a sun-loving container in fact it’s a cluster of containers using plants that radiate abundance when I choose plants for a container I think of

Three different shapes something tall and spiky something round and full and something to cascade or spill over the edge in this container I chose a tall and spiky fountain grass ornamental grasses make great centerpieces for containers they’re so exuberant pink gara helps to soften the transition between the tall and spiky element and

The round and full you see gaara’s make good container plants because they’re very drought tolerant this Lanai royal purple verbena rounds out the container and cascading over the edges is a sweet potato vine called ace of spades this beautiful gray leaf helichrysum and trailing petunia called rambling lilac

Glow now to make this ensemble even more abundant I’ve repeated two of the plants in the large composition the ace of spades sweet potato and the ramblin glow petunia in smaller containers around the base and as you can see all together they make quite a dramatic display now

Let’s say just a little more about those sweet potato vines over the past several years you see them everywhere both the dark purple variety ace of spades which we just saw in the container and the chartreuse colored one called margarita while they’re fast growing annual ground

Covers they can sometimes be a thug in the garden and in containers so be prepared to cut them back You know whenever I advise design client so being generous with planting they inevitably ask well how will I know if I’ve planted too much wondering if there’s a difference between excess and abundance well frankly I think there is a difference you see excess is when one element in the composition dominates

Everything else to the point it’s a distraction you see I think abundance should be used in measured quantities I think we live in an age when the operative message seems to be too much is just enough but this philosophy is it always in the gardens best interest or our interests

For that matter if you contain your exuberance plantings within a framework you’ll be rewarded by a harmony created between the structure and the looser plant choices now one of the best reasons that I can think of to plant with exuberance and abundance is to be

Able to cut what’s outside in the way of flowers and bring them indoors to enjoy so make sure you plant enough in the gardens that when you cut from your display you don’t weaken it let me give you an example I always pack in extra tulip and daffodil bulbs into drifts

When I plant so that when I cut them for spring bouquets I haven’t destroyed their overall effect in the garden another trick is to plant equal numbers of early mid and late spring bloomers by choosing varieties with different bloom times you extend the impact of the display while maximizing the use of bed

Space this technique will help you enjoy the flowers and waves of colors one of the blessings of abundance is having enough to share with others some gardeners love to offer their vegetables to neighbors others plant a row for the hungry and give their surplus crops to local shelters in both cases the rewards

Of sharing makes the extra effort spent planting seem worthwhile of course during the holidays the spirit of giving is at its peak but throughout the gardening season giving pass-along plants to family and friends those are plants that have been handed from one gardener to the next is another way to

Be generous you see plants carry with them a sense of history place in nostalgia one of my gardening was always very generous with the daylilies an IRC hybridized as well as his favorite daffodils he gave them to many of his friends and several gardening organizations his plant gifts

Shine in gardens all through the city as he shared the gifts from his garden he left a legacy of his work inspiring others to do the same one of the ways I share plants from my garden is through cuttings can remember friends and family going through my grandmother’s garden

Taking cuttings by her instruction rooting them and starting plants for their own gardens you see taking cuttings is one of the easiest ways to create new plants it’s commonly done in the nursery business in fact just take a look at these little hydrangea plants they were started from cuttings what’s

Amazing to me is that in only 12 weeks these will be in full glorious bloom hydrangeas are one of the easiest plants to propagate by stem cuttings I find that taking cuttings in mid to late summer is the best time first find a limb with about two or

Three leaf joints cut the stem just below a leaf joint and remove the lower leaves if the cutting has any flower heads on it they should be removed next just wet the ends of the stem and then dip them down into some rooting powder then just stick the cuttings into moist

Soil will they’ll remain for about six to eight weeks that’s important to remember that during this time of root development you have to keep the soil consistently moist now once the plants are rooted they can be transplanted into larger containers before planting in the garden next spring

Another great way to bring abundance to the garden is through wildflower seeds and a great place to see wildflowers and all of their glory is at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin Texas founded in 1982 its mission is to educate people about the environmental necessity economic value and natural

Beauty of native plants dr. Robert bruenig executive director of the wildflower center and the director of horticulture Denise Delaney tells us more well this institution was founded by Lady Bird Johnson when she returned to Texas from her years in the White House and of course during her White House

Days she was trying to encourage people to recognize the natural beauty of our country and so when she came back to Texas of course she wanted to grow native plants and wildflowers and she quickly became very frustrated by the fact that she couldn’t find oftentimes the seeds of the wildflowers she wanted

To grow or couldn’t go to a nursery and find a native plant so the idea was born that hey you know I’m gonna try to encourage this whole concept and encourage the growing of native wildflowers by founding an institution devoted to the research on and the education about native plants and

Wildflowers Texas is known for its wildflowers and when you approach the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center you can’t help but notice this wonderful fabric of colors all over the roads hype when you come on to the property there is just most incredible diversity of species now we have the Texas Bluebonnet

Is the state flower and Texans are very proud of that far but there are so many other species that are just incredible and helped set off the colors you might see paintbrush or these very beautiful orange you also see pink evening primrose you’ll see yellow coreopsis and

They’re all mixed in like it quilt along the roadsides going 65 miles down the road is one way to look at them but walking through the garden you can really see them up close the whole idea of the architectural wildflower center is the connection between the human environment and the natural environment

Between natural heritage and cultural heritage and so the architect that built the Wildflower Center studied the vernacular architecture of Texas and the different architectural styles and Hispanic traditions the German Hill Country did traditions the ranching traditions and really blended them all together in a very sensitive way and

Really creating what I think is an almost perfect integration between the human environment and the natural environment we’ve got a big job a front in front of us in this country we’re losing our native plants and wildflowers and while that’s sad it’s also joyful to be able to help educate people about

Those issues and try to do something about it one time I saw a news reporter ask mrs. Johnson why out of all the things that she chose his first lady to do why did she choose wildflowers and she’s just said one word joy spreading this joy of gardening with wildflowers

Is Julie Holland of Holland wildflower farm Julie produces and sells wildflower seeds to gardeners all across the country wildflowers can be defined in different ways so we we have our own definition that we feel is pretty correct wildflower is anything that will naturalize in an area given a start and

So the plants that we grow and sell seeds for are ones that are either native to the United States and naturalized and what a naturalized flower is is one that did or did not originate here but that is maybe from Europe say Queen Anne’s lace is a is a naturalized wildflower it’s originally

From Europe but it’s certainly naturalized here so that it would fool you into thinking it’s one of our native wildflowers we make five different seed mixes those aren’t Naturals is one of the most popular for the Ozark region and any other surrounding region of the Ozarks and they’re native and naturalized

Wildflowers to much of the eastern United States so that’s a good mix of things that are going to naturalize because they have done so already the butterfly wildflowers is our newest one and that’s designed to attract butterflies it’s about I think 15 or 20 different wildflowers including Queen Anne’s lace butterfly weed baby

Blue eyes and and some others the Dames rocket that’s behind me planning a wildflower garden is a little bit different than just going to the garden center and picking out what looks pretty and plugging it into the ground you have to kind of have some foresight

And decide what the effect is that you want and then choose things that will grow in that area someone who’s very familiar with Julie’s wildflower seeds is Carl hunter carl has penned several books but is probably best known as the author of wildflowers of Arkansas and for being the neighbor with the yard

Full of blooms what’s going on here is just an average city lot there’s a lot larger and some smaller but within a yard if you pick all the different spots shady spots and sunny spots and places that you can grow flowers and there’s a wide variety of there is that

Wildflowers were growing that a lot can be done just on a fairly small tract of land so I like some people know that when they come here I’m growing a hundred and fifty different species of wildflowers on this property and I’m growing everything from plants that like

Almost no Sun plants that grow in full Sun all the time because on the west side of the house the Sun comes in there hot in the afternoons and those are the sunflowers and things we seal on the roadsides but on the east side of the

House or the front of my house those plants of course are not in the Sun in the afternoon because the Sun goes by in the house and on the north I’m growing some of the plants that people don’t get to see very often like jack and a pulpit

You green dragons and bell works and all of those beautiful shade things that really will replace hostas and more colorful but this is kind of like a shopping mark that you wander around and say oh I like that one or I like this one and you get to see many different

Kinds but not laid out is most people would landscape it’s a strange thing but in cultivated flowers or in arranging yards many people go through a lot of thought as to whether they want Reds with pinks and all different combinations but in nature all the colors are often together and nobody

Thinks about this being a clash so I don’t think it makes a lot of difference what colors you use just use colors that you like to plant in your garden and here in this garden I’ve put all different kinds of flowers together for shade and Sun and I’ve put them in small

Groups so that you have lots of choices as to what you would like and most of these things that you see here are readily available I have not got rare things or unusual things I’ve got things that are along the roadsides and out in the woods and are available even in

Local nurseries for instance black-eyed Susans and coreopsis and many of these real common flowers are in every state in the Union Another plant native to the Americas that I grow in my garden is Nkosi ana are flowering tobacco even though it’s an annual it’s the kind I call a hearty volunteer because once it’s finished flowering it drops its seed and comes back next year now the wild mikoshi ana

Can grow quite tall and has an incredibly fragrant blossom which attracts night pollinators now hybridize errs have been at work creating beautiful garden variety flowering tobacco I love this chartreuse colored one called Saratoga lime and this pink variety called apple blossom and I have to say

That every time I plant one of these I’m rewarded with abundant flowers that keep on giving well we’ve certainly been all over the map in today’s show but I hope that many of the examples you’ve seen will inspire you to plant with abandon in your own garden we’ve seen that even

In the smallest containers you can have abundance and that you really can’t plant too much and hey if you do that just means you have more to share with others until next time from the garden home I’m allen Smith more information about today’s topic and other topics covered in this series can

Be found at PL and smith.com on an upcoming episode of PL on Smith’s garden home hi I’m Allen Smith you know there’s something funny going on in our next show we’ll visit this estate on Long Island and learn about one little girl’s birthday surprise and how it relates to

The design principles of time and whimsy plus we’ll explore this mysterious garden and find out how your garden can get this look You