Think of the colour white and the image of a wedding dress, eggs or snow will likely spring to mind. But with a little stretch of your imagination, visualize instead a small corner bed or a border around a patio filled with white plants. Single-colour schemes are sometimes referred to as “monochromatic” — a term that takes the romance out of any flower arrangement — but be … [Read more...] about Design a white garden
turtlehead
16 plants for soggy soil
Some like it damp While some of you may regard a reliably soggy, slow-draining spot in your garden with dismay, I look on it as an opportunity to grow plants that don’t reach their full potential in the drier, well-drained conditions found in most herbaceous borders. And there’s no need to abandon petals either; a huge palette of flowering plants is ready and waiting to go. … [Read more...] about 16 plants for soggy soil
Hummingbirds love the nectar from turtlehead
I have a small patch of pink turtlehead (Chelone obliqua, Zone 4), sometimes called twisted shell flower, a perennial that blooms in late summer through early fall. They send up 30-inch (75-cm) spikes of hooded pink-purple blooms, similar to the violet-blue helmet flowers of ‘Bressingham Spire’ monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii, Zone 3). The monkshood begins blooming a little … [Read more...] about Hummingbirds love the nectar from turtlehead
Culver’s root and turtlehead: Late summer stars
In mid-August, I visited the perennial gardens at the Stratford Festival in Ontario to see what was in bloom. Predictably, there were several large clumps of phlox, but I was surprised to find tall thick stands of culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum, 4 x 3 feet / 1.2 m x 60 cm) and turtlehead (Chelone obliqua, 3 x 2 feet / 90 x 60 cm), two old-fashioned Zone 5 plants that … [Read more...] about Culver’s root and turtlehead: Late summer stars
