I’m always excited when Elle Ronis sends in photos of her beautiful garden in Stamford, Connecticut. If you’ve missed previous posts, you can see some here: Flowers Big and Small and Shrubs for High-Impact, Low-Work Gardening.
In spring, an early-flowering yellow rose (possibly Rosa hugonis, Zones 5–9) combines perfectly with a showy peony (Paeonia hybrid, Zones 3–8).
A Japanese wood poppy (Glaucidium pamatum, Zones 5–7). This graceful perennial for shade blooms with these large, lavender-blue flowers in the spring, and it keeps its attractive foliage the rest of the summer. Easy to grow anywhere, it doesn’t get too hot during the summer.
Dense plantings of hydrangeas, hostas, and daylilies make a beautiful carpet of plants that fills the garden and leaves nowhere for roses to grow.
Another view of the perennial plantings. This combination would work in any lightly shaded garden, as long as you could protect the daylilies and hostas from hungry deer.
This double-flowered version of the native bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis, Zones 3–8) is a shade-loving perennial that blooms in the spring and then goes dormant in the summer. The regular form has simpler flowers that quickly fade, but this form with extra petals stays in bloom much longer. It will spread via rhizomes to make a nice clump when happy.
An amazing chrysanthemum—with a very unusual and different form to these flowers!
A large show-style chrysanthemum. Notice the ring holding the blossom. These huge show chrysanthemums require careful pruning and support to produce maximally dramatic flowers.
Another show chrysanthemum beginning to open.
Mass planting of dramatic chrysanthemums.
I have a lighting setup in my basement where I grow rare flowers. I have many plants, including 10,000 high-elevation orchids as well, in genera such as Dracula and Odontoglossums.
Have a garden you’d like to share?
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Comments
Enjoyed the tour! You have some very interesting plants! Lovely! Thanks for sharing & Merry Christmas!
Such unusual and beautiful plants. Love your dense garden...no room for roses. And certainly no room for weeds. Just lovely!
That bloodroot is out of this world!!
I love that bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis, I had no idea a double petal version existed and lasted longer...I love learning new gardening stuff!
Wow your chrysanthemums are out of this world, and you take such good care with staking them up.
Now that' a basement surprise, all that light and life with plants!
I also never heard of the Japanese wood poppy- it's so pretty!
Love those giant spidermums and the other unknown to me kind. i am inspired to grow more mums. Alice
I just wish I could grow half of those plants here in South Carolina. Thats the only thing I miss up north..beautiful gardens such as yours. Thank you.
Hi Elle,
Thank you for sharing these beautiful flowers. I'd like to buy some cuttings from those chrysanthemums. Would you please share with me where you got those mums? Thank you!
Oh my! This was a wonderful Merry Christmas bunch of photos! The fire works of those chrysanthemums... and that wood poppy! So beautiful! I hope all my fellow gardeners had a wonderful Day and that 2021 will be gentler for us all than 2020...
Amazing!!!
I'm in awe with your beautiful garden, your exquisite flowers, you definitely have a green thumb and an incredible sense of design. I visited your other posts and couldn't believe my eyes.
I should learn from you as like you, I live in CT but I made some mistakes not learning more about native plants.
Your post such a beautiful place to read and watch gorgeous pictures. Thank you robuxnoverification to share this with everyone.
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