Category Archives: flowers

color in the garden, flowers

Orange and Peach color in the Garden

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Enjoying a spectacular sunset on a warm evening in the summertime is one of life’s simple pleasures. Peach and orange tones bounce off the bottom of gauzy cirrus clouds as they streak across the sky. Combine these warm colors with varying shades of blue sky and you have he perfect color combo –opposites on the color wheel. We can’t help but ooh and aah,? we have an emotional response to this particular pairing of colors.

If you don’t have a vignette or section of your garden with peach, orange and blue yet, now’s the time to create one. All the tints and tones of orange warm and cheer up our gardens, no matter what the weather. And orange flowers set off every color of foliage, from blue-gray to lime to copper.

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Canna ‘Pretoria’

Here’s a short list of my favorite peach and orange flowers and foliage:
???? Orange hummingbird mint ( agastache aurantiaca ) a drought tolerant, summer-blooming favorite of hummingbirds.
???? Crocosmia – an old garden favorite with long blooming flower spikes that make good cut flowers.
???? Kangaroo paw Tequila Sunrise ( anigozanthus ) – another long blooming hummingbird favorite
???? Canna Pretoria – beautiful variegated gold foliage and orange flowers make this perennial a classic
???? Yarrow Terra Cotta ( achillea millefolium ) – drought tolerant, carefree, generously blooming perennial attractive to both butterflies and their larvae
???? Flowering Maple Tangerine( abutilon )- favorite year-round bloomer of both hummingbirds and yours truly.
???? Fuschia gartenmeister – the orange fuchsia that needs no cleaning. May still be blooming at Christmas time for your hummers.
???? Orange New Zealand sedge ( carex testacea ) – widely arching clumps of beautiful rusty grass

Other inspiring orange flowers your sure to want in your garden are calibrachoa Sunrise or Terra Cotta, gazania, lantana, dahlia, coprosma Evening Glow, orange tuberous begonias and orange daylilies

Combine with blue flowers, stir well and stand back to enjoy your own garden sunset.

 

decks and patios, Design trends, flowers, fragrant plants, garden design, gardening tips, landscape design, sustainable gardening

New Plants for the Garden

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Every season new varieties of colorful flowering annuals and perennials are introduced by hybridizers. These new plants are field tested and bred for better performance, disease and insect resistance, flower size, color and heat tolerance.  Where does this happen?  What goes into that gorgeous vivid red geranium you see on the bench at the nursery?

Over 30 breeders of flower seeds and perennial starts each spring showcase their new varieties in trials held throughout the state.  Professional growers visit the trials to choose which new varieties they will grow this year and offer to local nurseries and garden centers.  Goldsmith Seeds in Gilroy is one of the locations that hosts the colorful spectacle.

Fragrant, wisteria-covered arbors shade paths that wind throughout the landscaped grounds . The grounds are open to the public to enjoy throughout the summer.  Also on site are the greenhouses where breeders work on creating new and better flower varieties.  It was interesting to see several acres planted with fava beans as a cover crop. Soon the fields of this flowering legume will be cut down and tilled into the soil to add nitrogen. Legumes attract soil dwelling bacteria that attach to the plant’s roots and pull atmospheric nitrogen out of the air and soil, storing it on the roots as nodules.  When the plant is cut down and chopped up to decompose that nitrogen remains in the soil to feed new plants. After a few weeks of decomposition the energized soil will be ready for planting test flowers that Goldsmith seeds will further evaluate.

All of the seeds are actually grown in greenhouses in Holland and Guatemala. Cool season flowers like primroses, cyclamen, violas and pansies are produced mainly in Holland while warm season flowers like dahlias, geraniums, gazanias, and verbenas are grown at different elevations in Guatemala. I learned Goldsmith Seeds has been developing and growing seed in Guatemala for 40 years.

What new cultivars really impressed me at the trials?  There’s a new geranium that combines the best features of ivy and zonal geraniums. I liked the amazing color of Calliope Dark Red but all the colors were show stoppers. They would be perfect for baskets or beds in full sun or part shade. And you should see all the colors that calibrachoa now comes in-light blue, dark blue, deep yellow, peach, orange, even white with rose veins. These have now been bred to bloom earlier in the season which is why you’re seeing them in nurseries now.  There were many fragrant flowers like . I always looks forward to them when they arrive at the nursery. 

Try something new in your garden this year. There are so many good choices.
 

flowers, gardening tips

To do or not to do in October

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This weeks to do or not to do:SterlingRed Cyclamen

Wait to prune all your trees until late in the dormant season or in late spring after leaves and needles form.  Fall is not a good time to prune.  Wounds heal slowly, leaving them more susceptible to disease.  As a general rule, don’t prune when leaves are falling or forming.  To avoid sap flow on birches and maples, prune after leaves mature.

Plant cool season annuals and perennials for fall, winter and spring flowers.  The sooner you get them in the ground, the faster they get established.  Planted too late, they may just sit until spring.  Good choices for this area are cyclamen, primroses, calendula, pansies, violas, Iceland poppies, snapdragon, stock, chrysanthemum paludosum, ornamental cabbage and kale, alyssum and English daisy.