2017 Garden Bloggers Fling Director Tammy Schmitt (check her blog out at ts-casamariposa.blogspot.com) flung open her own Bristol, Virginia garden gate for us to see her exuberant cottage style garden. I knew I would love this garden when we entered through a gate crowned with a freeform trellis created by a long dead but quite sturdy vine trunk!

This precious little Clematis was making its way up the trunk as fast as it could. This downward facing bell shaped flower is not one I see often in California.

It is easy for those of us who garden in areas with short mild winters and long, long growing seasons to forget that many Zone 7a gardens like this one may be  blanketed with snow well past when we have all ready fertilized our lawns and deadheaded our roses for the first time .

Keeping that in mind, the riotous summer foliage and flowers in Tammy’s back garden are all the more impressive to me. Her garden is completely organic and features many native plants and ornamentals that attract birds, butterflies and other wildlife. While perennials stay in place through the cold season, all Tammy’s pollinator friendly annuals are sown from seed while all else sleeps.

I love the fact that this garden has no 5 or 6 foot privacy fence and can be enjoyed by Tammy’s neighbors as well as the wildlife and family dogs. This creative gardener met the challenge of her 5 rescue dogs’ favorite pastime of running back and forth in front of the low wire and timber fence by clearing the plants from their preferred footpath and rechristening it a dog run. Not even visible to those enjoying the garden but perfectly “dogscaped” for her pooches.

A hand dug river bed over 60 feet in length ending in a rain garden prevents runoff from entering the storm drain that flows to the Chesapeake Bay.  Volunteers from reseeding annuals are free to take root in the river bed, adding to its very natural feel.

Tammy has a great way with pots, with dozens forming living walls on either side of the steps into her home. There are some interesting posts on her blog chronicling her search for a way to get these yearly pots going through the winter weather to get the best jump on spring.

Absolutely going to use this great idea for marking plants–mini clay pots with the plant names on the bottom casually top supports which disappear into the sea of green.

Tammy has been using a product called Penetrate from one of the Fling’s sponsors, John & Bob’s Smart Soil Solutions, to improve her clay soil.  We had an opportunity to be John Valentino’s audience as he filmed a promotional spot for the products in Tammy’s back garden.  It was interesting to hear the science behind the line of organic products and a few good questions from our group added to the filming, making us a truly captive (and quiet until called on!) audience. Thank you, John!

A quick note to my Central Valley readers–John & Bob’s is a Fresno company. My Fling swag bag included both literature and sample products to try. We all know great gardens start with the soil–I am going to put several of these products into play in my garden. John cautioned us that these are not overnight fixes but I am willing to put the time in if I can reform my clay soil even moderately! I’ll keep you posted but in the meantime, check out what these local soil superheroes have to offer at http://www.johnandbobs.com

And it is so obvious that Tammy Schmitt loves to garden–thank you to her for the three years of blood, sweat and tears it took to organize the 2017 Capitol Region Garden Bloggers Fling. As a first year participant I had no idea what to expect. One description I read called the Fling “summer camp for gardeners” and I think that is quite apt. I spent time with new friends away from the normal routine of my life, shared stories and experiences, saw some beautiful scenery and created memories to last a lifetime. 2018 will mark the 10th anniversary of the Garden Bloggers Fling and that anniversary will be celebrated in its ‘home town’ Austin, Texas. Don’t worry–I’ll be there and by way of photos and words–you can be, too!

Was the way a fellow garden blogger described the the undulating borders and beds as we took in the big picture of the The Plains, Virginia front garden of Linda Hostetler. Her neat, cream colored stucco home sits smack on the main street of this little village with a population of about 200. Linda is a graphic artist turned landscape designer and she has used her narrow and very long one acre lot to compose a cottage style garden packed with trees, shrubs, conifers, perennials, annuals, bulbs and ground covers organized into hundreds of vignettes curated to delight the eye and senses.

A little screening  from the busy street offers an alluring view of what’s to come!

Linda repeats variations of the primary colors red, blue and yellow throughout her garden to create visual rhythm–keeping your eyes and your feet moving through her numerous plant collections.

Japanese maples, both green and red, are a staple in the Hostetler garden and are used as focal points and architectural elements. By the way–we are still in the front garden which is probably 1/5th of the total garden space.

Thriving colonies of what I think are ladybells (Adenophora) and Agastache are loving the sunnier areas of the front garden.

There are plenty of shade dwellers also–notice the red, blue and yellow foliage working in harmony.

Linda has used structure, in the form of pathways, conifers and other evergreens, low walls and hedges to define garden spaces and views. Her use of more than one path choice to move you through the garden offers the chance to see plantings from multiple angles and in different light conditions. As we start to wander toward the back garden via the side yard the first choice must be made–up or down.

I chose the pathway furthest from the house. Densely planted on both sides the path is not even visible from the lower one.

The lower path at its ‘trailhead’.

The upper path appears to lead us to…?

My route was a woodland walk with civilization mostly obscured. Hydrangeas, ferns, hostas, Solomon’s seal and other dappled light lovers guided my way.

The path opens up and a few stepping stones down bring me to the charming back patio.

You can see a fellow visitor arriving by the lower route, stopping to photograph a rustic birdhouse. Linda has used a variety of garden art and artifacts throughout–and while they all look very random at first glance–each is as carefully placed as the plant grouping it highlights. Notice the curve of boxwood acting as a low wall to define this part of the garden from the pathway.

A serene rock pond is the focal point for this patio area. The path on which I entered is actually above and behind (see the hanging basket on the tall tree trunk?) and circles around and down to the right of the waterway, allowing me to see it from above before I have even arrived at the patio level.

Another example of Linda’s use of small boxwoods to define a curve. These greens and whites really sparkled in the dappled light.

The barn–what a wonderful structure around which to build garden elements!

This stacked stone bed provides an ending point for the patio area and the starting point for the rest of the garden which I’ll call the lower back garden. Buckle up! We are going on a wild ride!

One of dozens of gorgeous conifers, large and small, which provide year round interest and structure in the Hostetler garden. This specimen sits proudly at the gateway to the lower garden and just begs you to come on down.

This first level is the sunniest area in the garden and surely the gathering spot for family and friends. Multiple pathways, gravel, stone and mulched lead off from this open spot to all reaches of the garden. Linda’s pathways take you places you did not even know you wanted to go to! Ramble around with me…

Cobalt blue is the color of choice for garden ornamentation–market umbrellas, metalwork and glass objects sport this happy hue.

The garden is on so many levels that wonderful views can be found at every turn of the path. I wish I had thought to count the blue market umbrellas throughout the garden–I am guessing there are at least a dozen, each with a comfy spot to sit beneath it.

Even from the highest paths there are lovely views up toward the fence line. This semi-shaded area sports all manner of greens nestled among large rocks.

The ‘high road’ takes us from shade to sun and back again. I love the way the elevation and sighting of the paths make them invisible–offering access to all part the garden for maintenance but no distraction from the layers of foliage and colorful blooms.

Standing on this rock to get the long view doesn’t quite make it–maybe a small helicopter?

Linda and her husband dug this 16 X 24 foot pond and its 90′ stream to provide food and shelter for the garden’s resident amphibians. A small seating area is suspended over the water’s edge, offering a shady spot to watch the wildlife.

I loved the uses of stone throughout the garden as pathways, accents, interest and structure. Look at these great chunky steps taking us back up from the pond area to the more central part of the garden.

Linda and her husband have created a garden that is the end of the rainbow for a plant junkie like me. Sadly for us, she was unable to be onsite during our visit. I would have liked to ask her about her design process–all of those paths and elevation shifts carefully planned out on paper or developed in stages as the spirit moved her? Master plant plan or “I love this and I’ll find a place for it.”? The garden is so relaxed and welcoming one could easily be fooled into thinking it just developed itself–if only that could happen I would have a garden just like this one!

 

 

 

 

Local gardening legend, former television show host and aspiring blogger Peg Bier welcomed us to the constantly evolving two and a half acre garden paradise she and her family have called home since 1959. She readily credits the help of her four children and 12 grandchildren in being able to keep the bountiful beds, borders and overabundance of container gardens tended and watered. Then a full-time employee at local nursery, Merrifield’s Garden Center, she was the obvious choice to co-host the local cable TV call-in gardening show, Merrifield’s Gardening Advisor, which aired on Saturday mornings for over 25 years from 1990 until 2015. Check out the archived shows on You Tube by entering Merrifield Gardening Advisor in the search box! Her common sense advice and seasonal topics are timeless. No longer in her seventies, she has retired from television but remains a part-time Merrifield’s employee and a fixture in the Fairfax County, Virginia gardening community.

I feel sure that, in its youth, the Bier home and garden in Tyson’s Corner were surrounded by rolling farmland. Modern day development has grown right up to its property lines and Peg now gardens her acreage right in the middle of a neighborhood of well cared for homes. The riotous roadside garden filled with all manner of plants is the first hint that this garden is a bit different from its more restrained neighbors.

 

In Peg’s own words, “It is not the wow factor but the smile when some small discovery is made.”

Before we even get off the roadside I see that there are small vignettes and dish gardens tuck into the garden here and there. Many are so subtle you really have to be looking for them!

 

The first view of the family home–the elevation change is the perfect set-up for sunny raised beds viewed perfectly from the front porch.

Peg’s garden weaves in and out of sun and shade offering good growing conditions for a wide variety of perennial, shrubs and trees.

Peg shared that all the maples in the garden were propagated by her. Her home seems to grow right out of the garden, softened on all sides by greens, golds and burgundy.

The home’s main outdoor dining area, complete with seating for the whole family, is barely visible until you actually climb the few stairs to the patio.

This timber framed sunken patio offers shady respite and another opportunity for built in raised beds.

There are sun plants…

And shade plants..beautiful hostas on parade, big and small!

Comfy, resting and reading spots appear as you round curved paths–this one themed with red-orange blooms and bright blue garden accents.

This green roadway parallels a small riverbed and took me to Peg’s veggie garden.

Completely fenced to foil the deer, veggies are grown in and amongst flowers and small accent shrubs.

Above and below dish gardens planted with small scale shrubs nestle among carefully curated garden accent pieces.

Peg Bier’s garden is truly full of small discoveries but there is no absence of wow factor here either. My impression is that of a “gardener’s garden”–plantings are relaxed and re-seeders just go where they please, her less than perfect lawn reflects her commitment to organic gardening and I believe she will find a home for any plant she to which she takes a fancy. Her garden mirrors her personality and is a fitting legacy of the almost 60 years of devotion.

 

In all honesty, I am not sure there was a river and I don’t know if Ellen Ash is a grandmother (hmm..she does have a bubble machine in her back garden) but we journeyed through many tall trees on the way to her woodland garden in Great Falls, Virginia. California gardeners–except those in the coastal northern areas who have plenty of their own trees–get a little sappy about rural areas with rolling GREEN fields and stands of towering oaks maples and conifers. The Ash garden is no more than 50 miles from Washington, D.C. yet it seems to be in a totally different world.

The gated entry and long drive in flanked by mature woods reveal no clues of the contemporary home and treasure filled  2 acre woodland garden carved out of the forest.

This dry riverbed flows from the house to the drive. Mature plantings of hollies, flowering trees, junipers and other shrubs nestle up to the home. I often talk about designing plantings to give a garden a “sense of privacy and enclosure”. No need here! This property actually is enclosed on all sides with woods–no road or neighbor can be seen or heard. Check out our group as we left our bus to see the scale of the surrounding forest.

The highlight of Ellen’s garden for me was the extensive perennial bed–maybe 250+ feet long and 20 feet deep bordering the driveway directly in front of Ellen’s home. You can see just the end of it in the photo above.

In addition to small blooming shrubs, clematis, spring bulbs and lilies this bed is home to over 100 varieties of perennials and many of the fun garden chachkis Ellen adores. The low stack stone wall undulating through the bed adds a second level of interest.

We wandered through her woods which includes mature native American hollies, oaks, maples, hickories on our way to the back garden. I loved her use of very large stones set into mossy paths offering many side routes to areas filled with hydrangeas, azaleas and rhododendrons.

This little girl I met along the way made me laugh! Clearly she represents the joy this gardener takes in tending this beautiful piece of Virginia.

Among the ferns and hosta I spied this plant which appears to be an Acanthus-the variety is unknown to me as we pretty much just grow the Acanthus mollis which has the huge glossy dark green leaf. Can anyone help?

One of many areas to sit and enjoy the garden and its inhabitants, organic and inorganic!

The Ash back garden has a classic large lawn area–great for games and dogs–bordered by groupings of mature shrubs. When I gardened on an acre in Central Georgia I learned the value of having large areas which were less fussy and more maintenance free so that I would have time and energy to intensively garden other areas requiring more TLC. What a wonderful leafy background for these broad plantings.

While a large pool and pool house is the focal point for the back yard I was drawn to the variety of beds and plant material softening the perimeter and the areas between the home and the pool hardscape.

Ellen’s dahlia bed–so sorry I will not get to see these when they come into bloom in late summer.

The use of stone throughout the pool and patio area ties the manmade landscape to the natural landscape.

Layers upon layers of green made this garden seem cool even on a hot and humid late June afternoon.

As we say goodbye to Ellen Ash’s gracious garden I know you are wondering, “What does a can of spray paint have to do with a woodland garden?” Here’s the story!

The moment I got off the bus in Ellen’s driveway I was held captive by a number of groupings of brilliantly colored Allium. In my defense, your view is through my camera lens. In reality I was 10-15 feet away from the blooms. As I marveled at their clear color this late in the season, a Virginia garden blogger standing next to me clucked and shook her head as if I was a lost in the woods (literally). “They’re spray painted.”, she said. “No, really, they are.”, she added. Apparently spray painting your alliums is SOP in these parts. Many gardeners like to retain the spiky seed heads throughout the summer and then harvest them for fall and winter arrangements–presumably breaking out the spray paint again in an appropriate hue. I will admit to being a wee bit skeptical of the explanation until I saw spray painted seed heads in several more gardens over the next couple of days.

I can see the Ash homestead in the forest as the gathering place for friends and family far and wide–children and adults playing touch football on the broad lawn, going on scavenger hunts amongst the canopy of the forest or just sunning and swimming at the pool. In my mind’s eye I see Ellen with her sun hat and trowel puttering in her garden and enjoying the very personalized garden she has nurtured in this wonderful natural setting.

 

The 2017 Capitol Region Garden Bloggers Fling opened my eyes to the great range of public gardens available to the the residents of the Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland. Remember when I told you the Fling’s itinerary was designed to give us a little taste of a lot of different regional garden experiences rather than whole meal of just a few? Hmmm…I may have only said that in my mind and not to you in a post! In either case–in that spirit our time was limited in both of the two public gardens I will share today. Both were beautiful spaces with a nice balance of open areas and display beds and would provide a full day’s enjoyment during any season of the year. The residents of their communities are so fortunate to have these public gardens and their resources right in their backyards.

BROOKSIDE GARDENS in WHEATON, MARYLAND

Brookside Gardens is an award winning 50 acre public display garden within Wheaton Regional Park. The gardens are free to the public from sunrise to sunset every day of the year except Christmas Day. We disembarked at the modern (and air conditioned!!!) Visitors Center and I picked up their 2017 Spring and Summer magazine–packed with a full range of events including the Summer Twilight Concert Series, Shakespeare in the Garden, the Garden After Dark and a speaker series. Year round the garden offers cooking demonstrations, a full range of horticultural classes, a school of botanical art and illustration and a ton of children’s activities. While our tour remained remarkably on schedule over the 3+ days, given the sheer number of places we traveled, we needed to play catch-up when reaching Brookside. The hot ticket right now is the Wings of Fancy Live Butterfly and Caterpillar Exhibit at the South Conservatory and so I set off down the hill to find it. Take the walk with me and see what I passed along the way.

I am loving it all ready! Located close to the Visitors Center with easy access for families this great outdoor classroom is planted with alphabet topiaries and even has a miniature library. Each of several “classrooms” has a lesson that connects the garden to the concepts of Math, Science, Reading Art and Music. Even lunch and recess are more fun than the average school day!

Beautiful layers of color and texture flank the wide and easy to walk downhill path.

Pots tucked in here and there keep aggressive spreaders like this Equisetum hyemale, or horsetail reed, in check.

No shortages in this garden of breathtaking long views. As I saw in so many places on this adventure–conifers, evergreen hardwoods and deciduous trees mixed and layered with varying shades of green shrubs and perennials.

Astilbe, commonly called false spirea or false goatsbeard, flourishes in the shade canopy and softens the transition from hard surface to landscape.

The lime greens light up the shade and work so well with the little pops of purple Browallia.

Healthy, blooming Hosta-objects of lust and envy for dry California gardeners.

Cornus kousa ‘Snowboy’ had me at first sight. Its form is more upright and slender than my other favorite variegated dogwood ‘Wolf Eyes’.

Arriving at the South Conservatory I knew I did not have time to actually enter the  butterfly exhibit but very much enjoyed the long raised bed filled with plants attractive to all types of pollinators.

The educational signage was great and the area was full of moms and strollers plus touristy garden guests like myself–clearly Wings of Fancy is a popular destination.

Had to get my hustle on now to get back to the Visitors Center for our Panera Bread boxed lunch and a great presentation by Fling sponsors American Beauties, Organic Mechanics and Sustane. Left with more great goodies including a native Phlox, Sustane’s Complete (water dispersable fertilizer) and a big bag of root zone feeder packs called Fuhgeddaboudit! from Organic Mechanics. All of these sponsors are small ecologically  responsible companies–check them out on the web!

MEADOWLARK BOTANICAL GARDENS in VIENNA, VIRGINIA

The beautiful Piedmont Hills are the backdrop for this 95 acre property which was once a family farm. Meadowlark is a garden devoted to conservation, aesthetics, education and community service operated under the auspices of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. We had the opportunity to meet Garden Manager Keith Tomlinson at our closing dinner in the Atrium to hear his vision for the garden–I was pretty amazed to hear that Meadowlark is essentially self sustaining. The garden is open daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. There is a small admission fee or you can buy a family yearly pass for $45–pretty good bargain. There are a number of themed gardens including: the Experimental Meadow, the Korean Bell Garden, the Perennial Color Border, the Herb Potpourri Garden and three native plant collections focused on Virginia and the Potomac Valley.

Meadowlark has some of the most phenomenal long views of any botanical garden I have visited. Paved and mulched walking trails meander throughout. Due to time constraints I kept to the center parts within an easy walk back to our dinner venue. Stroll along with me and enjoy this beautiful park which sits right in the middle of a residential   neighborhood.

My first stop was the Bold Garden, a fun collection of plants having bold coloration, size or texture. You can just get a peak at one of my fellow bloggers having a bit of a rest. Most of the display areas had places to just sit and soak in the surrounding nature.

While this meadow rue, Thalictrum rochebrunianum ‘Lavender Mist’ does not look very bold in this photo, the bloom stalks rose over 6 feet!

 

Another appealing resting spot–this one in the Herbal Potpourri and Salvia Garden where deep beds flank a winding center path. Over 70 species of Salvia are represented along with hundreds of herbs and medicinal plants.

Here’s one of those long vistas I promised you! Just a glimpse of Lake Carolina, one of 3 small lakes in the garden, as seen from the herb garden.

A glorious day at Meadowlark looking across the Great Lawn.

This meandering path of daylilies led me to the mass of bloom from the Stout Medal Daylily Garden downhill near one of the smaller lakes. This collection contains at least one of every daylily awarded the prestigious medal given in memory since 1950 in memory of  Dr. Arlow Burdette Stout, who is considered to be the father of modern daylily breeding in North America.

 

July 8 is Daylily Day at Meadowlark with a plant sale, a walking tour and a special exhibition by the Northern Virginia Daylily Society. As I followed the walking trail around Lake Carolina I passed impressive perennial beds in which daylilies and their companions were the stars.

The far side of Lake Carolina has large gazebo perfect for wedding and other events–what a serene setting.

Rounding the lake in my route back to the Atrium and our dinner I passed by so much more than I could ever share. Meadowlark had a meditative quality so appealing to me. Perhaps it was the wide open spaces where the collections were destinations you reached by way of just enjoying the natural flow of the land rather than being bunched up together one after another.

The sun disappearing behind the trees…

We enjoyed  lovely dinner together in the Atrium and heard some words of wisdom about staying current in a fast paced digital media world from  Lloyd Traven of Peace Tree Farm, breeder of Lavender ‘Phenomenal’. I saw this interspecific lavender (hybrid crossed between plants in two different species) used extensively in several of the Smithsonian Gardens–full of blooms and drawing bees like a magnet! In Central California we don’t think twice about losing lavenders through the winter. ‘Phenomenal’ was bred in Pennsylvania and has excellent winter hardiness to Zone 4. Lloyd and his wife and business partner, Candy, spent the weekend with us touring gardens and even brought us all our own ‘Phenomenal’! Check them out at http://www.peacetreefarm.com for more information about everything they grow. Just a heads up–you won’t find any seasonal color baskets with red petunias, white verbena and blue calibrachoa on their website.

Next up–2 acres  in Great Falls, Virginia where I learned how spray paint mixes with woodland gardening!