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The Garden Appreciation Society Week 19 — Challenge yourself and link up!

October 23, 2013

I realized a funny thing while taking pictures of this week’s Garden Appreciation Society bouquet: I enjoy the bouquets that are harder to come by more than the ones that I made when the garden was in full flush. There’s something about the challenge that makes me appreciate that bouquet even more. Or maybe it’s just that it forces me to get creative.

In any case, I managed to come up with a relatively simple bouquet that is not only striking but somehow extremely seasonally appropriate. That dark purple, almost black kale definitely says Halloween to me.

The Impatient Gardener -- The Garden Appreciation Society -- Monkshood and kale

The funny thing is that I don’t even like the color purple. I actually kind of detest it. But I think this bouquet comes together all in the texture. The large flowers of the Monkshood is such a nice contrast to the frilly kale. I haven’t had a lot of luck getting the kale to last long in bouquets, but even if it’s only perky for two days, this bouquet is well worth it, especially since there’s not enjoying the outdoors these days with it getting dark about half an hour after I get home in the evening.

The Impatient Gardener -- The Garden Appreciation Society -- Monkshood and kale

I know you probably don’t have a ton of flowers growing in your garden right now if you’re in a northern part of the country, but I challenge you to come up with something to appreciate your garden in a new way this week. I’d love to see what you come up with.

The Impatient Gardener -- The Garden Appreciation Society -- Monkshood and kale

* I feel compelled to edit this post to add a small disclaimer. My mom just told me that Monkshood is incredibly toxic, which is news to me. My dogs don’t really go around eating plants but my cat loves to attack bouquets in the house, so I’m probably going to put it somewhere where Desdemona can’t reach it when I get home tonight just to be on the safe side. There are a ton of plants out there that are toxic in varying degrees, but this one sounds like a biggie.

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And if you’d like to take a little walk down memory lane, here are the previous weeks of The Garden Appreciation Society.

  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
  • Week 5
  • Week 6
  • Week 7
  • Week 8
  • Week 9
  • Week 10
  • Week 11
  • Week 12
  • Week 13
  • Week 14
  • Week 15
  • Week 16
  • Week 17
  • Week 18
Garden Appreciation Society
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
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About Erin @ The Impatient Gardener

View all posts by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener

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  • The Garden Appreciation Society Week 16 — Link up!
  • The Garden Appreciation Society Week 15 –Show us your blooms!
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Comments

  1. Libby says: October 24, 2013 at 6:18 pm

    Hi Erin: I just came in from photographing this bouquet! Even we are supposed to have a freeze tonight, so I cut what was left of my zinnias. The Flikr page shows everything I photographed today!

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
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