Perfect little worlds

 Two cottages are surrounded by plants with tiny leaves and delicate demeanor that mimic a full-size landscape.

The idea of creating a miniature landscape or fairy garden never much appealed to me. It always seemed a tad too precious, too cute, too cluttered with ornamentation. But, after a visit to Winter Greenhouse in Wisconsin, I may become a convert.

The scene in one of the plant-filled greenhouses stopped me in my tracks. The display of two cottages and the surrounding landscape was nothing short of charming. The cottages looked as if they had been plucked from the pages of a fairy tale. Thyme and baby's tears became lawn; sedums and succulents and sempervivens became shrubs and trees; accessories were tasteful and not overdone. The plants, and the creative way in which they were employed, carried the day.

Winter Greenhouse has a web site devoted to its new venture in miniature landscaping -- it has inspiration and, of course, plants and products for sale. There's also advice on how to create your own landscape. Be advised, these are not no-maintenance projects. Like any landscape, they require upkeep to keep them looking good.

Muehlenbeckia complexa is trained onto the mini arbor.

The Underfoot Cottage has a sweet windowbox. Slender chives stand in for a tall hedge by the fence. And yes, that's a rock waterfall at left.

Thyme forms the upper lawn at the Mustardseed Cottage, and I think that's a jade tree near the bridge. Note the tire swing at the back of the house on the left.

A round bench surrounds a dwarf euonymus; pink hypoestes contrasts with the many shades of green. Delicate purple alyssum forms a hedge at left.

Fishing? Better yet, flowers and foliage

The benches and aisles were jampacked at Byrn's Greenhouse two weekends ago.

Forget about today's fishing opener -- who cares about walleye when there are way-cool plants to be had? The forecast sounds like it will be perfect weather for buying plants and getting out in the garden this weekend. But don't go crazy and set out all your tender stuff -- we're not done with the possibility of frosts/freezes yet.

I've been out and about a little bit the past couple of weeks. Here are scouting reports from a few of the places I visited.

Byrn's Greenhouse in Zim: Fantastic selection of bedding plants and probably the best prices of any place I've visited so far this year. I picked up small pots of white heliotrope for $1.55 each. Really nice selection of herbs. The flowers and veggies were all healthy and robust and really, really hard to resist. Go. Get directions here.

Swanson's Greenhouse in Eveleth: Another winner for bedding plants, although prices seemed a tad higher than Bryn's. Swanson's also has a good selection of trellises, pots and garden do-dads.

Burchfiel's Greenhouse north of Duluth: Swooned over nice pots of antique shades of petunias (pastel pink with yellow in center, find a photo from Burpee here). I was going to buy some, but they don't take credit cards so I came home empty-handed.

The Garden House, Solon Springs, Wis.:  Always a fun, inspirational place to visit. Lots of purple perilla. I snapped up a six-pack of bells of Ireland -- you don't often find these flowers for sale. Learn more about the greenhouse here.

Holly keeps notes on plant combinations she likes in a journal that she carries with her when she shops. That way she can check varieties quickly without having to depend on her memory.

For my Valentine: Roses revisited

The rose garden at the New York Botanical Garden is a little more than acre in size.

We still talk about last summer's visit to the New York Botanical Garden. What can I say -- it made an impression.

 

The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden was especially memorable. It's strange, I'm not really a huge fan of formal rose gardens -- I much prefer my roses mixed in with other flowers in a less-refined tumble of petals and shapes. But this one was so expansive and so well-kept, you couldn't help but be impressed. It was renovated in 2006-2007, and the roses growing there are being evaluated for performance as well as beauty. The New York Times has more about the $2.5 million refurbishing. What you can't do with a little money.

Visiting public gardens is a great way to get ideas for your own space. I especially liked how the NYBG surrounded pots of tree roses with salvia 'Victoria' and underplanted other tree roses with smaller, shrubby roses.

 

The blue of the salvia plays off the pink of the roses; and I love the repeating elements. 

Pink Double Knock-out is underplanted with Pink Drift.

 

We do grow roses at sillydoggarden, but don't fuss with tea roses or standards like those in the pots above. Hardy, shrub roses such as 'Hansa' are more to my liking. We tried a shrubby 'Golden Wings' some years ago. It didn't survive, but it was one of the prettiest roses I've seen. After seeing it in New York last summer, I'm hot to give it a try again.

 

This pale yellow 'Golden Wings' is especially appealing. 

Not only does the NYBG have money, it also has the staff to care for such a treasure. This gardener (below) was deadheading roses just outside the entrance to the formal garden. When we commented on the magnitude of his job, he just smiled and said "we're gaining on it." And so it goes, maintenance in a place like that is ongoing, never, ever really done. Kinda like it is here, too.

A little grooming goes a long way.

Easy fruit-fly trap

A little wine for the flies.

Fruit flies seem to follow when the garden harvest gets moved indoors. Here's a tip we learned from a friend who is a former restaurateur: Pour a little wine in a jar or glass, cover it with plastic wrap and poke a tiny hole or two in the plastic. The fruit flies are attracted to the wine, fly in and can't escape. Whatever produce you have on the kitchen counter is safe.

Pie for all

This is too cool! Individual pies baked in short canning jars. Find it over at ourbestbites.com. They had me with the sweet stuff and then they said chicken pot pie. Can you say Fat Chicken Farm chickens?

I've always been intimidated by the prospect of baking a pie with a crust. But this sounds easy enough even for me.

Geraniums? Or geraniums?

I love the chocolate pattern on 'Samobor's' foliage. The glossy leaves at right are the ivy geranium; the blossom also is the ivy geranium. 'Samobor' also is called Mourning Widow and performs well in semi-shady locations.

Some of the best performing plants in our garden are the hardy geraniums, also called cranesbill geraniums. And some of the best performing plants in containers are the tender plants commonly called geraniums that in reality are pelargoniums, a completely different genus. What would happen if I put the two together?

This spring, needing to keep a tighter rein on the plant budget, I decided to try it out. The hardy geranium Geranium phaeum 'Samobor' on the north side of the house needed to be thinned and divided. The big whiskey barrels by the garage needed to be filled -- cheaply. I dug up some clumps of the 'Samobor' with its fat leaves blotched with chocolate and paired it with 'Black Magic' ivy geranium found at The Garden House in Solon Springs, Wis. The ivy geranium has just a hint of chocolate in the center of its glossy leaves. I really like the subtle repetition of form and color. The leaves are different enough to be interesting and provide contrasts in texture and similar enough to form a relationship that isn't jarring. Oh, and the flowers are nice, too.

I'm debating on whether to pot up the 'Black Magic' to attempt to overwinter it inside. It may be more trouble than it's worth considering all the other tender plants that need to make their way back into the house in the next few weeks. Although it's a perennial that easily toughs out the winters here, I doubt 'Samobor' will survive above the ground in the whiskey barrel. I'll sacrifice them -- there will be plenty more where they came from next spring.

This whiskey barrel brims with hardy geraniums, tender ivy geraniums, 'Rosamond' lobelia and a fern in the back. Next time, I'll ditch the fern and trade out 'Rosamond' for 'Sapphire' lobelia. I think the blue lobelia would be a better companion than the purple. The hardy geraniums bloomed earlier this summer; they have small, purple flowers that are held above the foliage. But the combination is about the foliage and not so much about the flowers.

Rainy morning reading

Washington Post garden Adrian Higgins has an interesting profile of garden designers Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd of North Hill garden in Vermont. I've been a fan of these guys for a while and it was fun to check out the photo gallery of North Hill.

Two really good takeaways from the online chat:

1. Use a votive candle softened in the sun to plug the drainage hole in large clay pots that you want to use for water gardens. Add some mud at the bottom and plant. I've always used the clay/ceramic pots as cachepots for my water plants that are planted in ugly plastic pots. It's still a good system because it makes it easy to bring in the plants for the winter. But I'm intrigued by the candle idea and may have to give it a try next year.

2. Winterrowd and Eck say Seneca Hills Rare Plant Nursery owned by Ellen Hornig is the new Heronswood. High praise, and the online catalog is definitely worth a look.

Chair lifts

One of the great things about going to greenhouses and nurseries (besides loading up on cool plants) is the inspiration you can find. Here, two ideas to lift from two greenhouses -- both regarding chairs.

The first is from The Garden House in Solon Springs. Remove the seat from an old chair. Take a metal container such as a bucket and drill some drainage holes in it. Wedge the bucket into place where the seat would be. Plant the bucket with a colorful assortment of annuals; include a flowering vine such as this thunbergia to clamber up and over the back of the chair.


The second is from Winter Greenhouse. These metal chairs are fitted with seats fashioned from scotch or irish moss. (I spotted similar chairs, without the moss seats, in the front yard at Serendipity, the home and garden furnishings store on Superior Street in Duluth.) The table's lower shelf includes a selection of succulents growing in a mossy base. How cool is that?