Today we’re in St. Louis, Missouri, seeing Jana Inman’s garden highlights from 2021!

We love seeing images like these on the GPOD, so please send in some photos from your garden. It is fun to see everyone’s favorite garden moments!

It’s hard to beat these stunning blue hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla, Zones 5–9) flowers. This type of flowerhead is called “mophead,” and it has many large, showy, sterile flowers in a big, round mass. The other common type is called “lacecap,” which produces a ring of showy, sterile flowers around a central disk of much smaller, more delicate, fertile flowers. Both are beautiful, but it is hard to beat the classic, romantic cottage-garden look of this mophead type.

A few strings of lights and some places to sit and suddenly the garden is a great place to relax, and maybe share with friends!

Aquilegia canadensis (Zones 3–8), with its beautiful, nodding red flowers, is native to most of North America east of the Rockies. It thrives naturally in lightly shaded woodland areas, but it lives just as happily in the garden, with individual plants living longer than many columbines, and self-seeding gently if happy.

This beautiful view of the front garden includes a furry, four-legged helper. Instead of a boring, sterile front lawn, Jana has made a space full of flowers and beauty.

Looking up at the front door, more hydrangeas color the foreground, while a rich diversity of shade-loving foliage fills in the rest of the area.