It’s a fun assignment: favorite tree, shrub, perennial, and annual. These will change next week, but today at the Asylum, here is what we love the most.
Favorite tree is coral bark maple, acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku,’ about which we’ve written before.
We’re shrub heavy here, so it’s tough to choose one, but just today we are thinking of the lovely spiraea thunbergii ‘Ogon.’ She spent a happy season in a container, right foreground, while we thought about where she should live.
Now in a permanent position in the front border, “Mellow Yellow” doesn’t mind pruning to keep her in bounds and blends nicely with daylily ‘Little Grapette,’ cosmos, lambs ears, just budding echinacea and variegated burnet.
And speaking of hemerocallis, it’s our favorite today. We have early, middle and late bloomers and they perform year after year, holding the garden together while weather and failed experiments threaten its stability. Here are a few glamour shots of this hard worker.
Cleome or spider flower is our favorite annual. It seeds around if we don’t deadhead too aggressively, and we don’t, pulling out or giving away unwanted babies. Cleome is a blender, working well with others and giving us the wonderful height we’re always looking for.
Check out The Home Garden for other favorites.
Great choices, after giving it some thought, I would have to go with:
Tree-serviceberry, lovely blooms, great fall colour, and the birds go crazy for the berries.
Shrub:Sambucus, loving the gold and black leafed ones, they can take very hard pruning, keeps them the size you want, and better colour on mew growth.
Perennials: Peonys, tough as old boots, gorgeous all year long.
Annuals: a tougher choice, I do not grow a lot of them, salvia “Victoria”, a lavender lookalike, great for bouquets, dries well. I would have said dahlias, but that is a tender bulb, although I throw mine away, so they become an annual!
Comment by kilbournegrove — March 11, 2010 @ 7:12 am |
I especially love your garden shots, they are just gorgeous. Do you know the cultivar names of your daylilies?
Comment by Sweet Bay — March 11, 2010 @ 4:10 pm |
Hi, Sorry, I don’t have names for the first two – the day lily farm sells hybrids they’ve decided not to reproduce and sell without names. That last one is ‘Barbara Mitchell’ – a strong performer worth looking for.
Comment by gardeningasylum — March 11, 2010 @ 4:22 pm |
A fun assignment indeed. Mine would be:
tree-Acer griseum
shrub-Viburnum trilobum ‘Wentworth’
perennial-Pulmonaria ‘Berries and Cream’
annual-Lobularia maritima
That’s just today’s list. Ask me tomorrow and it would be different….
Christine in Alaska
Comment by Christine B. — March 11, 2010 @ 7:27 pm |
Very neat Cyndy! I wholehearted agree with your choice on the maple. It’s on my eventually have to have list! The daylilies are beautiful too, have you ever tried hybridizing them?
Comment by Dave@TheHomeGarden — March 12, 2010 @ 9:29 am |
Hi Dave, A friend of mine hybridizes day lilies, but I haven’t tried it yet – looks like it could be fun.
Comment by gardeningasylum — March 12, 2010 @ 1:59 pm |
I tried, I couldn’t do it! Love your choices, though. Oh, your summer garden, I am swooning! Is that daylily really so pink, with purple seeds? Crazy beautiful!
Do you know Grace Peterson’s blog? I feel like you guys would really appreciate each other’s gardens and writing styles.
Comment by greenwalks — March 13, 2010 @ 2:12 am |
Hi, Thanks for the kind words – that daylily is kind of a mauvey purple and the seeds are sort of navy blue – it is a nice one, but just an unnamed hybrid from the daylily farm. Don’t know Grace’s blog, but I’ll look for it!
Comment by gardeningasylum — March 13, 2010 @ 5:28 am |
I love your choices. I think that Coralbark Maple is one we should try here. It’s lovely. I have Acer griseum – the Paperbark Maple, and it’s got great bark – go figure! I’ll have to look for that spirea, and I’m going to show Garden Man your daylilies. He loves them. I posted my favorites on my blog. Thanks for posting yours.
Comment by Kim — March 14, 2010 @ 6:09 pm |