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June 28, 2010 · 4 Comments

Three Great Garden Design Ideas

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Despite heat and humidity Saturday and intermittent storms Sunday, attendance at the Northfield Garden Tour was high this past weekend. I managed to visit four of the six gardens on the tour and came away with three great garden design ideas to apply at home.

vegetable garden

Vegetables and flowers blend well in this formal garden.

Mixing vegetables and flowers. Vegetables can be attractive, so why stick the vegetable garden in the back of the yard? Most of the gardens I visited had vegetable beds that were part of the main garden or the gardeners used flowers to enhance their vegetable gardens. (Worth noting: all four of the gardens I toured had vegetables as well as ornamental plants.) This garden-in-progress used raised beds for vegetables in an area with mostly ornamental plants.

Structure, structure, structure. Like the adage about real estate (location, location, location), inviting gardens must have structure. Whether provided by fencing, rocks, stone walkways, or charming wood structures, such as this seat with an arbor covered with wisteria, structure gives the eye a place to rest and enhances the plantings around it. All of the gardens had artists in them and several of the artists created pieces in ceramic or iron that would provide another focal point in a garden. Tours are a great way to get garden design ideas for structure because most tour gardens have fantastic structures in them.

Garden seating with flowers

Something structural in the garden gives the eye a place to rest — and the gardener, too.

Orange daylilies

Orange daylilies brighten every garden.

The power of orange. Ever since I heard Eric Johnson’s discussion of orange at the Northfield Public Library this spring, I’ve been contemplating orange and its effect in the garden. Every garden I visited Sunday had orange flowers somewhere and the orange brightened up everything around it. I have some orange nasturtiums I am growing this year and now that they have started to bloom, I can see how attractive and lively orange is in a container garden.

One of the best things about garden tours is talking with the gardeners and getting new garden design ideas. I have several more tours I’m scheduled to take in July, and I expect to learn something new from each of them.

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Comments

  1. Laura says

    June 28, 2010 at 1:16 pm

    Lovely arbor. That is one thing I am in need of in my front garden. I have flirted with the idea of more veggies in the front perennial garden. Right now I have a few Alpine Strawberry bushes, but that’s it. I think I may look at the idea more closely for next spring.

  2. Lelo says

    June 28, 2010 at 1:48 pm

    I love open gardens/garden tours: I get so many ideas for my own garden from them. That arbor is fantastic!

  3. meemsnyc says

    June 29, 2010 at 12:43 am

    Planting vegetable plants in a flower garden is a great idea.

Trackbacks

  1. Garden Tour Take-Aways | My Northern Garden says:
    November 30, 2010 at 5:06 pm

    […] tours around the Quad Cities in Iowa as part of a Garden Writers Association event, then hit the Northfield Garden Club tour, followed by my trip to Buffalo, N.Y. for three days of nonstop garden visits. In the past two […]

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Peonies are a huge part of Minnesota’s horticultural heritage. They aren’t native but our cold climate is perfect for peonies. They’ve been hybridized in Minnesota for over 150 years, and the state still has several peony breeders based here. If you ever get a chance to go to a peony open day in June, jump on it. Seeing rows and rows of peonies all blooming at once is a northern gardener’s joy. 

Peonies will last forever, too. Plant one in the right place and it will outlive you by decades. What’s your favorite plant? 
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