Native Plants tour

This is the third year, I think, that Anne Little and her husband have helped organize the tour of local gardens that are Bay-friendly and use mostly native plants.  This year I met Becky and her mother for a few delightful hours on a spring morning.

As always, I was amazed at how much the Littles cram into their small city lot, especially the number of trees they include while still maintaining enough sun for a vegetable garden.

They tout sedums for groundcovers.  I’ll have to try these.  Oh, wait, I already have the first one. Ternatum is said to do well in shade, so I am auditioning it somewhere along the terrace.

Becky and I were both intrigued with the eryngium.  I have since realized that the reason it looked so different from mine is that mine is actually an echinops.  No wonder.  Although, in my defense, they do both have spiky round blooms in shades of blue.  And start with an E…

This inkberry might do well in front of the rain barrel, being an evergreen shade lover.

We enjoyed the other gardens, too.  This one had a particularly beautiful planter.  Notice how the blossoms are twining up under the ironwork.

She also had lots of golden star, aka Chrysogonum virginianum.  There’s a variety called  ‘Allen Bush’ that seems to be a good one.  It likes shade and blooms for about a month. (This is one of the virtues of this tour – the actual gardeners are on site and can tell you all about everything.)

Another garden featured some unusual evergreens, plus a dawn redwood in the back yard that could eventually reach 90 feet.

This pot is perfect for the sedum.

Some of the gardens were not on the tour but got a close look from us anyway.  These Japanese maples were brilliant against the blue sky.

What is this big-leafed plant?  Not squash.

I’m pretty sure this is wild orchid, bletilla, like the one I saw growing at Colesville.  There were two big clumps in this garden, here paired with giant alliums to marvelous effect.

Across the street we saw this stray, that either wandered by itself or was passed over the fence.

Lots of inspiration again this year.  I also discovered that Anne Little does garden consulting.  I am emailing her asap for some help with a couple of problem areas.