Return to Chad and Seyra’s Backyard

Yesterday we visited Chad and Seyra’s backyard in Woodbury, Connecticut, and at present we’re again to see extra of their lovely vegetation.

Like plenty of different gardeners, we love the birds who come to our backyard. Through the years, we have now more and more thought of their wants when deciding on new vegetation. However selecting coneflowers was a contented accident. We love Echinacea purpurea (Zones 3–8) as a result of it’s simple to develop, seeds itself round, blooms for months, is available in one among my favourite colours (pink), and simply so occurs to be fashionable with the birds and bugs. It’s a complete win-win! I like to combine them with different pink vegetation which have completely different shapes, like Pennisetum orientale ‘Karley Rose’ (Zones 5–8), and Sanguisorba hakusanensis ‘Lilac Squirrel’ (Zones 4–8).

Right here’s a type of birds now. The goldfinches are simply one of many many species who adore this plant!

The ponds and containers permit us to develop numerous water vegetation like lotus and water lilies. This miniature water lily, Nymphaea ‘Helvola’ (Zones 4–10) is completely proportional to the little froglet rising from the small container that served as his nursery. Enterprise forth into the large world, courageous toddler!

We additionally gather Brugmansia (Zones 8–10) as a result of who may resist a Brug! We pack our basement to the ceiling with these behemoths each fall, figuring out it’ll be completely price it in the summertime to have this!

That is Brugmansia ‘Charles Grimaldi.’ There’s one thing about mendacity on the grass beneath and gazing up into the aromatic trumpets that may erase your worries. These Brugs want a number of water and fertilizer and durable helps to remain blissful and upright of their pots. Our yard may be very windy, and these top-heavy pots typically get knocked over until we brace them with items of rebar. On this picture we’re utilizing a repurposed rebar plant help. Monty Don taught us you could purchase your personal rebar and bend it to make your personal sturdy helps. We bend it across the trunks of timber to form them.

Yearly we fear concerning the wildfires out west the place our family members stay. The smoke even drifts all the way in which out to Connecticut, typically making it laborious to see the hills within the distance. However the smoke has a method of intensifying our sunsets like nothing else I’ve seen. These lovely sunsets are so bittersweet.

On this picture, Rudbeckia fulgida (Zones 3–9) and Echinops bannaticus ‘Blue Glow’ (Zones 4–9) are backed by an intense sundown.

I may by no means say which season is my favourite, however fall has a particular place in my coronary heart. It’s as if fall is the backyard’s grand finale thanking us for our laborious work and bidding farewell till spring. We purposefully plant for fall colours. The native New England flora give us a head begin with that. And we attempt to echo these colours within the backyard.

We dug up our complete earlier backyard and introduced it with us once we relocated. That first summer season, we frantically planted issues anyplace we may shoehorn them in to assist the vegetation make it by means of their first winter. This picture exhibits that even in these early chaotic plantings, the vegetation discovered a method to discover the appropriate companions and shine anyway. I’m going to take that as proof of my principle that the extra cool vegetation you gather, the upper likelihood that the vegetation will magically assemble themselves into a wonderful composition requiring no effort on the a part of the gardener.

I’m an enormous fan of Patrinia scabiosifolia (Zones 5–8). It grows simply from seed, produces tall acid-yellow umbels beloved by pollinators, and has foliage that turns shades of crimson within the fall. What a workhorse of a plant! I’ll by no means be with out it once more. Behind it’s Rudbeckia triloba (Zones 4–8). We rely closely on self-seeding vegetation like these to fill in our empty areas. We love the generosity of those vegetation. They provide a lot and ask nothing in return.

Try extra of this backyard on Instagram: @s2szahme

Have a backyard you’d prefer to share?

Have pictures to share? We’d like to see your backyard, a selected assortment of vegetation you like, or a beautiful backyard you had the prospect to go to!

To submit, ship 5-10 pictures to [email protected] together with some details about the vegetation within the photos and the place you took the pictures. We’d love to listen to the place you might be situated, how lengthy you’ve been gardening, successes you might be happy with, failures you discovered from, hopes for the longer term, favourite vegetation, or humorous tales out of your backyard.

Have a cell phone? Tag your pictures on Fb, Instagram or Twitter with #FineGardening!

Do you obtain the GPOD by e mail but? Enroll right here.