OUR GARDEN LIFE
John and Kate Powell
Where we've been with our gardens, Â where we are this year, and where we hope to go with our gardens in the future!
We invite you to page down for a tour of our gardens.
All our gardens are a constant 'work in progress'. Your comments and suggestions are definitely welcome.
All photos on this site are from our gardens. We will update the site as the growing season continues and the gardens come into bloom.
The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.
Gertrude Jekyll
Peony Garden
We dug the Peony Garden in 2017 after a property survey showed that we unexpectedly had four feet of property in full sun. It is parallel to the driveway and highly visible from the street. The Peony Garden in combination with the Monarda Garden is over 50 feet long and includes areas of full sun and full shade.
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The first year, we planted peonies and narcissus for spring color. For late summer color we planted zinnias. The zinnia display in September was spectacular!
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The second year, we planted daylilies to fill in between the peonies and provide summer color. As an "anchor" for the bottom of the bed, we initially planted a hydrangea which didn't do well. We replaced it with Allium 'Millenium'. It is a great pollinator plant and provides late season color.
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In the third year the Peony display hit its full glory. The daylilies peaked a year later.
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Since the second year, we have variously planted globe allium, Asiatic lilies, and iris. The peony foliage is so dense by mid-summer that it out-competes all but the daylilies.
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In 2022, after several years of zinnias, we are trying tall dahlias for late season color.
Plant and your spouse plants with you;
weed and you weed alone.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Dahlia" Garden
We started this garden in the fall of 2020 using the lasagna method to create workable soil. The garden has a mostly sunny location at the corner of the driveway and the public sidewalk.
The ground is sloped; consequently, the soil and mulch wash out of the garden in heavy rains.
We planted eight dahlias here the first year. The particular dahlias were chosen because of their advertised 3'-4' height. They grew to 5'-6' and overwhelmed the space! From our perspective they were too tall and out of control. They were spectacular, but did not contribute to a coordinated garden plan for the front yard.
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Three tall daylilies were also planted in the garden. We were lucky they survived being smothered by the dahlias. Unusual petunias, portulaca, and alyssum were the garden border until obscured by dahlias.
The 2022 plan has a tall - yet unidentified - "wow" plant in the center. There will be no dahlias!
You can bury any number of heartaches in the garden.
Charles Barnard
The Monarda Garden
This is one of our older gardens. It has spent most of the time in transition. It is five feet wide at one end and narrows down to 2 feet at the other end. It has a sharp slope that empties into the driveway. It gets late morning and early afternoon sun; and then plunges into solid shade.
This started off as a narcissus display area with annuals for the remainder of the year. Marigolds were the early choice for summer color and then we discovered 'four O'clocks', the best self-seeding annual ever!!!
Soil runoff made us switch to perennials. The basis of plant selection was simple — what had the best roots and colonized the fastest? Monarda was the first in; daisies across the top were second; Coneflowers were third; Heliopsis was fourth, and Physostegia (Obedient Plants) was fifth. The Coneflowers and Heliopsis could not compete with the monarda and had to be moved for their protection. Mountain Mint was a late addition to the mix ... and was immediately moved to an area where it could be contained!
Without a specific plan to do so, this became our first pollinator garden. It attracts lots of bees and butterflies. By happy coincidence it became our most deer and rabbit resistant garden.
Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint and the soil and sky as canvas.
Elizabeth Murray
The Porch Garden
This started as an undiggable patch of sloping ground that fronted the foundation plantings for the house. It was the typical suburban line of rhododendrons and azaleas that had decades of wood mulch mounded around them. We initially expanded the "mulch zone" by a couple of feet to allow the planting of bulbs in the fall and petunias in the spring. Digging the holes for any plantings required a sharp trowel and mallet.
After several years of slowly expanding the plantable area and adding organic material, we were able to plant medium sized hosta in front of the azaleas. We continued the expansion on a nearly annual basis. What had been a two foot space in front of the azaleas grew to 10 feet deep and 25 feet long.
Unexpectedly, our neighbors removed a large (and healthy!) sweet gum tree. Our front yard went from shady to full sun in the course of an hour! The hostas hated it. After several years dealing with withered hosta, we replaced them with a cottage garden collection of native perennials along with peonies, daylilies, and sedums.
A hallmark of our Porch Garden has been the border of tulips in the spring and petunias (occasionally zinnias or dahlias) through the summer and fall. The colors are generally white and pink; but in 2020 we surprised the world with red!!!
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A society grows great when
men plant trees whose shade they know they will never enjoy.
The "Cable Box" Garden
This very small garden replaced the mound of cedars that once hid the cable and telephone boxes. Close to the sidewalk, it commands attention from the neighborhood strollers and dog walkers.
It has long been a spring bulb garden — initially filled with a variety of daffodils. It is now densely filled with tulips. After the Pin Oak leafs out, this garden is shaded and is problematic for annuals. Despite that, we have continued to throw cleomes, cosmos, and petunias there in an effort to introduce summer color.
After one surprisingly successful year with Morning Glories on a trellis, we decided to give clematis a try. The soil is sufficiently cool and moist for clematis roots. The verdict is still out on whether there is sufficient sunlight for the clematis to bloom well.
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This garden suffers from storm water runoff. We planted a large clump of Rudbeckia at the highest point and staggered daylilies through the bed. This strategy has markedly improved soil and mulch retention.
The spring bulbs are beautiful and the rudbeckia bloom very well; but we still lack reliable ground-level color for mid-summer.
"I grow plants for many reasons: to please my eye or to please my soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow."
David Hobson
Audrey Hepburn
To plant a garden is to believe in the future
The Clematis Garden
This small garden is between the porch garden and the garage. At one time there were two overgrown hemlocks, a rhododendron, and a flowering plum in this area. They were parts of the original landscape plan — all too close to each other and to the house. The plum suffered from the diseases that seem to affect all stressed plums. We were glad to remove this landscaping fiasco, but replacing them has been a decades-long challenge.
This is the area where the utilities come into the house. It has been dug up three times for cable replacement. Also, this is the location of a stone filled dry well, making any deep digging impossible.
Our initial plantings had been three large peonies. The plants filled in the space very nicely. Unfortunately, the blooms were doubles and succumbed every year to the early-summer thunderstorms. We decided to replace them with perennials.
In order to hide the utility boxes on the house, we installed trellises and planted different varieties of clematis (the namesake for the garden).
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Except for the clematis and a large area of phlox subulata, all the plants in this garden are plants that have been relocated from other gardens.
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There has been little planning here. This is our "eclectic" garden — made up of plants that had nowhere else to go! Every spring we are surprised by what we find.
The Kitchen Walk
This garden walkway is the result of a garden design class I took at Phipps Conservatory. It is very much a work in progress! The space was challenging from the start. The soil had/has a high clay content and was/is quite compacted. It has a sloped grade and - largely because of the compacted soil - has storm water run-off issues from the upper yard. It has a northeast exposure and is bordered on its south side by the house.
Our first step was to install a picket fence along the back of the proposed garden with a right-turn at the front connecting to the house. We installed a curving walkway with stepping stones (the route of which has changed several times already!!!) from the front gate to the patio at the back of the house. On each side of the walkway is a long curved-edge bed. As a focal point for the garden we planted a Black Chokeberry and are attempting(!) to train it to be a single stem tree.
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Along the picket fence, the top half of the garden bed gets morning sun and the bottom half receives only late afternoon sun. The bed along the house is in full shade all day.
The sunny area along the fence is planted with peonies, daylilies and iris. From the middle on down, it is primarily Solomon's seal, small hosta , and kirilow.
We have added a lot of organic material (our own compost) to improve the tilth of the soil and positioned rocks to eliminate and slow down the flow of stormwater. This year we will widen the beds , improve the turf soil, add more stepping stones, and again(!) change the route of the walkway!
When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.
Anyone who has spent time weeding in a garden!
Our Gardens - The Kitchen Walk
The Pollinator
Gardens and Walkway
The Pollinator Garden and Walkway is our attempt at creating a Penn State Certified Pollinator Garden. It is two years in the making and has already developed the characteristic unruly meadow look in late summer.
The garden is made up of :
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The original kidney-shaped bed
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Separate areas for esclepias (milkweed) and mountain mint
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Walkway with border plantings
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Water features for birds, insects, and butterflies
This started out as a pristine, pretty garden; but the nature of native pollinator plants is to grow big and expand rapidly - features that pollinators undoubtedly appreciate!
In order to accommodate the spreading nature of native plants, we moved the esclepias and mountain mint to new areas. The Joe Pye, New England aster, and rudbeckia were moved to the other side of an existing walkway.
In the fall of 2021 we doubled the size of the original "kidney". The garden still has some of its pre-pollinator garden occupants — daylilies and iris. Those non-natives and cultivars will be transplanted this year.
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Up until this year, certification required three plants of each species. The expectation was that they would create drifts and be more easily located by pollinators.
Certification now requires five plants of the same species! That should result in many happy pollinators and some VERY crowded gardens!
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As is the nature of gardeners, we continue to add plants. This year we ordered two new golden rod varieties, a veronica, an ironweed, and a new variety of Joe Pye. Another garden expansion is in the cards for next fall!
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The pollinators in the "kidney" are: Solidago "Dansolitem", Coreopsis, Veronica, Penstemon, Liatris, Heliopsis, and Rudbeckia laciniata. Along the walkway are Joe Pye, Agastache, New England Aster, and Rudbeckia fulgida.
In isolated plots are Asclpepias incarnata and Mountain Mint. Planted in other gardens are Baptisia, Phlox (subulata and paniculata), Monarda, Echinacea, Obedient Plants, and Flowering Onion.
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When we see land as part of the community of which we are a part, we will begin to use it with love and respect.”
The Oak Skirt
It seems only a few years ago that I was mowing and trimming right up close to the trunk of this tree.
The ever increasing diameter of the tree and the erupting roots forces me to annually expand the no-mow zone . I learned early in this "man vs tree"
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competition that mulch cannot/will not stay on the ever-increasing slope. An effective ground perennial groundcover is required.
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The tree creates a unique growing zone. Anything planted under the tree must be tolerant of drought, shade, and heavy clay soil; and it must be well rooted and effective in preventing erosion.
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Our first ground cover effort was "Little Blue Mouse Ears" hosta. It took awhile but they filled in beautifully on the south and west sides of the tree. But, on the north side, they were thin and ineffective in preventing erosion.
Initially it took 8 plants to surround the tree. As the tree diameter expanded, it became abundantly clear that the annual need for hosta plants was growing exponentially!!! That's expensive; and the hosta are very slow to establish. We kept the hosta near the tree, but renewed our search for an effective groundcover that could fill the space between the hosta and the lawn.
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It was a "doh" moment, but we did finally recognize that the growing conditions are significantly different on different sides of the tree. We are now going with Sweet Woodruff in the most dense shade on the north and east. On the other sides we have planted Allegheny spurge; it is also slow to develop, but, so far, is promising in meeting our objectives.
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Because the tree and "skirt" are in the center of the front yard, we have tried over the years to plant bulbs to provide spring color and interest. All do well in their first years, but the lack of direct sunlight limits their ability to develop for second year blooms.
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Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With Silver Bells, and Cockle Shells,
And marigolds all in a row.
The Secret Garden
