How to Design a Blue and White Garden Feature The Renaissance Garden Guy Way

How to Design a "Blue and White" Garden Feature The Renaissance Garden Guy Way

There’s nothing quite like the combination of blue and white blooms doing their thing in the same flower bed. It’s an incredible look that lends a definite “English cottage garden vibe” to the scene. Read on to learn how to design a blue and white garden feature, and to implement it in your own garden, The Renaissance Garden Guy way.

I’ve been talking up my garden’s “Blue and White Hill” planting feature on Facebook and Twitter for a few weeks now. And I’ve been going on and on about this site’s upcoming post, this post, about my allegedly stupendous blue and white hill. Well, right off the bat, I’ve gotta admit, none of it is really all that stupendous. The hill itself, and this corresponding post (specifically the pictures in this post), just ain’t all that I cracked ’em up to be.

None of this exactly sounds like a ringing endorsement of my garden designing prowess or of my blog posting abilities. It sure doesn’t to me. So why would anyone want to read about “How to Design a ‘Blue and White” Garden Feature the Renaissance Garden Guy Way”? I sure as hell wouldn’t. Not after reading the first few lines of this post.

So I guess I’d better do some clarifying…

First of all, I have to admit that I truly do think the hill itself is actually sort of beautiful. Maybe a little wild in some spots, maybe a little immature and undergrown in others, but still sort of beautiful. And the plants growing in it are certainly beautiful. How could they not be? I didn’t create them – a lot more talent and genius than I could ever hope to muster obviously went into that part of the recipe.

So if I really do think my blue and white hill is beautiful, why am I trash-talking it?

I guess it’s actually just my inability to effectively convey to you, pictorially, the beauty of my blue and white hill (and its inhabitants) that’s got me kind of buggered. I really do consider this something of a failure. And this failure, as I see it, comes as the result of two things: 1) The immutable laws promulgated by the aforementioned creator of my beautiful plants – Mother Nature herself, and 2) My own inexperience and consequent mistakes. What are some of nature’s indelible strictures which have impacted the appearance of this planting feature? Factors like respective bloom times for individual plants, varying rates of growth for particular plants, and the effects of heavy, saturating rains have all had a hand in my resulting inability to evoke the full potential beauty of this feature and ultimately capture it effectively with a camera. Some plants aren’t flowering yet, some have already bloomed with the flowers long gone, some are still slow-growing babies, and many have been bowed and distorted by extremely heavy rains. But, as I said, it’s not nature alone that makes me think my blue and white feature doesn’t look quite as great as I think it should (still pretty beautiful, but not totally up to snuff). A lot of the blame lies with me. I am relatively inexperienced as a gardener and I did make some mistakes. Certainly, more experience on my part would have allowed me to mitigate at least some of nature’s negative effects on this assemblage of beautiful plants. But in the end, slow-growing plants will invariably reach mature size. My ability to prune, thin, and divide in a timely and effective manner will improve. An admittedly already beautiful planting feature will become more beautiful. And the effects of nature’s laws, working in concert with the efforts of man, will ultimately result in a triumphant, verdant, and strikingly-hued garden focal point.

Oh boy… That last sentence? Seriously?

Overly dramatic prolixity notwithstanding, you get the point – my blue and white feature doesn’t actually look too bad now, but it’s really gonna be killer next year.

Now you basically know my ambivalent-but-leaning-toward-positive feelings (all things considered) about my blue and white hill. But why am I making such a big production of this particular planting feature? Why even write about it in the first place? Well, I look at it this way: I have a garden on my property. I’m the one who put it here. (Last year). I am therefore now, like it or not, a gardener. Further, as a result of launching this website, I’m a gardener who writes about my garden. And the star of this particular bit of writing, my blue and white planting feature, also happens to be the star (or at least one of the co-stars) of my garden itself. By virtue of its size and location, combined with the vivid contrast of colors and shades, it’s a substantial focal point. And until I complete some of my other planned garden features, it might be considered the main focal point. It’s design and implementation methodology also serves as a basic model for the way I design and implement all of my garden’s planting features. And, there is that little issue of me blabbing about it on social media for weeks on end. So, the long and short of it is, I pretty much have to write about it now. I’m also hoping that by writing about this garden feature, some information might squeak through which may actually be useful to some of you who may be planning similar features for your own gardens. So at this point, all that’s left for me to do is explain some basic points about my blue and white hill and show you a bunch of pictures.

What is My Blue and White Garden Feature?

In a nutshell, my blue and white garden feature, or blue and white hill, is a roughly circular mound or hill populated by a large number of flowering shrubs and perennials which all bloom in respective shades of blue and white. It was designed to be one of the garden’s largest focal points. It takes up approximately 400 square feet and breaks grade level to a maximum height of approximately 18 – 24 inches. It is the highest point of ground in my garden, excluding my existing and planned limestone planters/retaining walls. It’s basically a large mound, or small hill, with its highest point at the center. The overall effect I wanted to achieve was that of a centrally located, visually arresting rise of land, richly planted and awash in waves of contrasting blues and whites. Although it’s currently situated more toward the south end of the garden, it will ultimately occupy an almost central location along the garden’s north-south axis once the south fence elevation is moved further south by about 8 feet. It is almost exactly centrally situated along the garden’s east-west axis. It receives the most shade on it’s southern face and quite a bit of sun (probably full sun – at least 6 hours) from the north. As far as average sunlight conditions with respect to the entire surface area of the feature goes, I’d probably consider it a partial shade location.

That, in broad strokes, pretty much sums up my blue and white hill. But this information alone does not adequately relay to you the details of the project and it doesn’t do enough to explain the nature and scope of the feature itself. A lot of planning, design, and work went into its completion, and a lot of beautiful plants got planted in it. You’re going to need more info and you’re going to need pictures. So, in order to provide you with an even remotely useful and informative design and implementation paradigm for your own elevated planting feature, and at the very least give you a decent read, I’ve got to lay the following items on you:

How I designed it.
How I implemented it.
What’s growing in it.
Natural shortcomings and unanticipated results.
The mistakes I made.
Adjustments and corrections.
Lots of pictures.

Note: For the purposes of this article and for the sake of convenience, the terms “the hill,” “the blue and white hill,” “the blue and white planting/garden feature” will be used interchangeably.

How to Design a Blue and White Garden Feature

What is a great way to come up with an eye-catching garden design feature? For me, the answer was obvious: Make the flower colors striking and grow ’em on a hill. Here’s how it went:

1. Determine the Location. Where’s the best spot for a super center-of-attention-grabber of a garden feature? How about the center of the garden? I thought, “Center of the garden, center of attention.” So, the center of the garden it was. For me, this area worked out perfectly. There was a dying tree and some struggling scrub in this area. Since the tree and scrub needed to be removed from the spot (and it really was basically the garden’s center), I said to myself, “Bingo.”

2. Bright Idea? What were the sunlight conditions? As I mentioned earlier, this is a pretty shady spot. But the section of this feature that does receive full sun gets a lot of it. Probably 30-40% of the area gets full sun. The rest of the feature, depending on the season, gets partial to full shade. It was critical to consider these conditions when the time came to select the plants.

3. Elevate Your Game. I envisioned a gentle hill of color when planning this feature. I thought a change in elevation would add texture to the garden landscape and would really bring the colors of the blooms in this feature to the viewer’s attention. Also, since a good part of the feature was going to be in shade during a critical time of the year, it was imperative to do something in order to further enhance visibility. Increasing the elevation and creating a mild hill accomplished just that.

In terms of how far I wanted this hill to rise above the surrounding grade, I settled on a height of somewhere between 18 and 24 inches. Since the total square footage of my garden will ultimately be only about 3,000 square feet, anything higher would have been overly dominating. Further, I did not want the height of this feature to detract from, at that time, future limestone planter/retaining wall elevations. Since the diameter of this planting feature is approximately 20- 22 feet, and the highest point is the central area (its profile and shape are really that of a true mound), the grade, or slope, of the hill – from surrounding grade to its highest point in its central portion – is approximately 15 -20%, probably closer to 15%. It’s a gradual slope and a pretty low hill. But it does enough to break the plane of the surrounding grade and add prominence to the feature.

4. Show Your True Colors. Nothing says “English Cottage Garden” quite like varying shades of blue and white. That’s what I think, anyway. And that’s the look I knew I wanted. I love the combos and contrasts of blues and whites. And back then, I loved that concept for this feature, and again, I just knew that was what I wanted. For the hell of it one day, while still in the process of building this monster, I arranged some potted Blue Butterfly Delphiniums and Western Star Leo Shasta Daisies (both of which were purchased specifically for this feature – sadly, those delphiniums did not survive) together in an experimental grouping. The result: the embodiment of exactly what I imagined for this feature – blue and white in amazing contrast. And again I said to myself, “Bingo.”

Incidentally, I’ve got blues and whites scattered throughout my garden in other locations, in other planting features. When planning my overall garden planting scheme, I knew I would utilize these colors diffusely throughout the garden. I felt that the centrally located, dedicated concentration of blues and whites in the hill would serve as a coalescing factor – pulling together, referencing, and enhancing the other blues and whites growing in other spots throughout the rest of the garden.

5. Plan for the Plants. When figuring out what and where to plant, a typical rule of thumb in ornamental garden design is short, medium, tall – short ones in the front row, medium ones in the middle row, and tall ones in the back. Makes perfect sense. That’s the best way to see them all when standing in front of a linear planting feature. It’s not too different for a big circular hill planting feature. Visibility of all the plants is the impetus behind the design. All plants must be visible from any vantage point when walking around, and viewing a circular mound. When coming up with a planting scheme for my particular hill, I took the following points into consideration.

Plant heights. I knew I would follow the basic rule of short, medium, tall. The very tallest plants would occupy the center of the hill, which was also its highest point. Guaranteed visibility, for sure. From there, I planned my way outward toward the edges in sort of concentric “rings” (think of a target practice bullseye), with the plants to occupy each successive ring getting shorter as I moved outward from the center. The slope of the hill helped a bit with this factor, making the successive “rings” of plants appear taller and taller as each ring moved inward from the edge toward the center. Think of the plants standing on a circular set of bleachers.
Access. This was going to be a big round hill covered with plants. I needed to plant in such a way that I could access various parts of the hill to get at the plants when necessary. I wanted to make my access unobtrusive. There were (and are) no planned or existing limestone walking paths in this feature. Like the other planting features throughout my entire garden, it is itself self-contained and will be encircled by a limestone walking path. But “in” the hill itself, I had to make do with a virtually undetectable, winding, and extremely narrow passage among, and at the bases of, the very tallest plants. There, among the bases of my six big hydrangeas, the path remains unseen, hidden from view by the overhanging branches of the hydrangeas and the foliage of the plants in the next concentric ring down. From this thin, snake-like swath, I am able (in uncomfortable, contorted fashion) to access everything in the feature. When planning the feature, I had to take this access into account and make sure that it was effective and basically invisible.
Sun and shade considerations. As I mentioned earlier, there are varying degrees of sunlight that strike this hill. The amount of light that reaches the hill depends on a number of factors (specific section or area of the hill itself, time of day, time of year, etc.). My plant selections for this feature (and their subsequent and respective locations) would be impacted by the light factor.
Spacing considerations. I always plant my plants a bit closer to one another than is often suggested (by the grower, nursery, or common sense). The benefit to this practice is the resulting dense and verdant cottage garden-ish feel to the feature. The downside is compromised visibility and the potential restriction of air movement and light around the plants. For me, the jury’s out on this one. I’ll address a problem I’m having a bit later in this article which may be directly related to my close-planting penchant.
Arranging by bloom color. Implementing the color scheme of this feature was a bit trickier than it may seem. Adding to the challenge of planning and designing an eye-pleasing and natural-looking distribution of the blue and white flowers were factors like bloom times (I wanted blue and white colors from early spring through well into autumn), light requirements, water requirements, and many, many more. In the case of this planting feature, arranging by color was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together.

6. Selecting the plants. This is a huge topic. Volumes could be written about it. But relax, that’s not the way it’s going to go down here. Since I’m going to give you a pictorial list of all of my hill denizens a bit later in this article, I’m going to try to be brief here. By explaining just one example of my plant selection and placement process, I believe you’ll be able to extrapolate and understand my methodology for choosing and placing my plants within the hill feature. For this example, I’ll talk about the two plants I planted at the very center (and highest) section of the hill and four of the plants I chose for the second highest level, and why I chose each of them and placed them where I did. For the top part of the hill, I planted two shrubs – an Endless Summer Blushing Bride Bigleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Blushing Bride’) and an Annabelle Smooth Hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’). They’re the tallest and the widest plants in the hill. They’re each capable of reaching 6 feet in both height and spread. The Annabelle’s almost there and the Blushing Bride isn’t far behind. If they were planted anywhere else in this feature, they would obstruct the view of other plants. Part of my invisible access path winds around their bases and in-between them. The path is obscured by their foliage. The top of the hill has a side that gets a bit more sun than the other. That’s the Annabelle’s spot. It can handle more sunlight than the Blushing Bride. I spaced them approximately 5 feet apart, center-to-center. That works great – terrific look, and they can lean on each other. In the case of the Annabelle, this second part is critical – its blooms are so heavy that they can weigh the stems down (and do so significantly after a rain), so the “lean on each other” dynamic works great here. They both produce huge, white flower heads. They provide a substantial amount of the “white” part of the blue and white color scheme. Hydrangeas like to be watered so these work well together in that respect, as well. So, these two plants met all the requirements for occupying their spots at the top of the hill. The next concentric planting ring down from, and “encircling”, the two big white hydrangeas contains, among other things, four Endless Summer ‘The Original’ Bigleaf Hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Bailmer’). These can grow to 5 feet in height and breadth and produce enormous blue flowers (if the soil is acidic enough – I need to add a little acidifier to mine). These plants meet all of the location requirements and they fit the color scheme. Perfect choice for the second highest tier. From, here, I worked my way down and round and round, choosing the appropriate plants using the same selection criteria. Hopefully, I’m doing an ok job of explaining this. If I am, you’re getting the point.

So, when designing my blue and white hill, there were a number of critical factors which needed to be considered. Location, sunlight, elevation, color scheme, and individual plant requirements/size/growth habits were all critical factors which I took into account and used to develop my plan. The design of this feature is definitely an all-encompassing topic. It was the blueprint (and “whiteprint”, so to speak) that began the move of my big blue and white hill from inside my head to a spot right in the middle of my garden.

How to Install a Hill Garden Feature

What’s the best way to build a hill in your garden and successfully cover it in great looking flowers? I’m not sure I can honestly tell you which way is the best way. What I can tell you about is my way. The Renaissance Garden Guy way. I guess my methodology worked because I’ve now got a big blue and white hill in my garden. The degree of its success may be subject to some interpretation. I know it needs some work, but in my humble opinion, I will say again that it’s pretty beautiful. But hey, there’s no accounting for taste, right? In any event, I’m going to give you a really brief blow-by-blow of how I implemented my design and built this thing. Here’s a brief synopsis:

1. Site Demolition and Excavation. Once I knew where I wanted to place this feature, I had to remove the things that were already there that I didn’t want to be there. What did I remove and how did I do it?

Tree and scrub vegetation. I hired a tree removal service to eliminate a medium-sized, half-dead tree which was located near the middle of my future hill (and was also in danger of falling on the house), as well as some dead and dying bushes. Although the company I hired did a great job of removing the tree and scrub, and grinding out all of the stumps, the sizable job of removing most and/or all of the root systems of this vegetation remained. It took me a day or two, and I definitely broke a sweat, but I got the job done. I recommend an axe, a shovel, a reciprocating saw, and a chain saw for this kind of work. I made sure to excavate as much dirt away from the root material I was cutting in order to preserve the blade of each one of the cutting tools. Nothing dulls a chain saw, saw blade, or axe faster than dirt. So I did a lot of shoveling and cutting. Not at all pretty work, but necessary.
Surface dirt/sand excavation. When I finished removing all of the old roots to a satisfactory depth and degree (about 12 inches down, and throughout the circumference of the entire planned feature’s roughly circular area), I removed all of the surface dirt and sand to that depth as well. Since the earth on our property is basically sand, due to our proximity to Lake Michigan, this excavation was necessary. At this point, what I had created was essentially a roughly circular crater, about 22 feet in diameter by about a foot deep. Again, not fancy, and definitely not fun, but critical to my plan.

2. Building the Hill. So now I had this big round crater in the middle of my very young garden. It didn’t look anything like the slopes of a gentle flower-covered rise, its pristine foilage ruffled by the gossamer whispers of a warm summer zephyr. There were no blue and white blossoms, nodding in assent to the suggestions of the warm and fragrant breezes. It looked like a cavity. A big, dirty cavity. And I was the dentist assigned the job of filling it. I was the dirt dentist.

Backfilling. Before my terranean cavity-filling activities could begin, I needed to get rid of all of the dead root parts and dirty sand I had dug out in order to make the hole in the first place. That’s right, the former contents of my newly created chasm were piled up all around me. I shoveled it all up, wheelbarrowed it all out, and looked at the roughly 14 cubic yard yawning hole that needed to be backfilled. Then I backfilled it. With rich black topsoil. It took me a minute, but I now had the backfilled and graded black dirt base for my hill feature.
Building up the elevation. The next step was to build up the hill to the height and slope I discussed earlier. I used more black dirt and organic garden soil (about another 14 yards) to build the structure of the hill itself. Now I was looking at a “roundish” mound approximately 22 feet in diameter and somewhere between 18 and 24 inches in height at the center.

3. Weed Barrier. I used weed barrier for part of this planting feature. Imagine looking down from a high place at a 22-foot diameter circle on the ground. Then imagine another circle with a diameter of about 14 feet, centered within the first circle. This 14-foot circle is what I covered with weed barrier. I installed the weed barrier in 4-foot strips and anchored it with steel landscape pins. This was the last time I used weed barrier in a planting feature in my garden. The outermost ring of the hill feature, which entirely encircled the hill in an approximately 4-foot wide swath, was not covered in weed barrier.

4. Digging Planting Holes and Plant Placement. For the sake of expediency, I’m not going into a whole lot here. Further, if you’ve read my other posts and articles, you’re familiar with my hole digging and plant placement methods. I go into these activities in substantial detail in my lily/daylily article from June of this year. To paraphrase, for this hill, I engineered it to look un-engineered. I measured and scaled and came up with a planting map, I labeled stakes with each plant’s name and placed each stake in the hill in locations corresponding to my planting map. Where there was weed barrier, I cut extra big holes with expansion slits in it. Then I dug really wide and really deep holes for the plants. And when I planted the plants, I bedded them all with Sta-Green Potting Mix, as I always do. The above link to my lily article addresses this whole process in great detail. Further, I’ll be posting an article here a bit later in the year dedicated entirely to the subject of my planting methods. For now, I won’t bore you with all of those details.

5. Mulch. The finishing touch on this feature was the addition of mulch to its surface. As in all of the other planting features in my garden, I covered the ground with a thick layer of Scott’s Naturescapes Sierra Red wood mulch. I use mulch for a few different reasons. The most obvious reason is to hide the weed barrier I’ve used in the hill and in three other planting features in the garden. Mulch also serves as a moisture-retaining and insulating agent. Retaining moisture around a plant’s roots can be something of a double-edged sword – moisture at the root level is a good thing during hot and dry weather. Too much moisture stewing in a thick pile of mulch against the plant’s stem can result in crown, stem, and/or root rot. Again, I’ll discuss this topic in more depth in a future post about my planting tactics. The insulating benefits of mulch during extreme weather conditions are undeniable. An adequate layer covering the soil around the base of a plant during extreme heat or cold can help ensure its survival. And although my garden design scheme calls for dense plant groupings which will mostly obscure the mulch, they won’t totally obscure it. I feel that the visual warmth created by a lining of mulch in a richly planted garden feature is detectectable and can be sensed as well as seen by garden visitors. In a really densely planted feature, this warmth can be almost subliminal. But it is there. So, I use mulch.

6. Solving the Puzzle. In the above section about the design process I used in developing this feature, I had mentioned that arranging the plants in the hill by color was akin to solving a jigsaw puzzle. It wasn’t just a question of the color of Plant A going well with Plant B’s color, it was also a question of: How tall? How wide? How much light? How much water? Where? When? So how did I specifically arrange, and then plant, the residents of my hill’s outwardly decending tier (or ring) pattern so that everything would be seen, everything would look good, everything would be happy, and there would be color at all times of the year in all parts of the hill? I’m going to partially answer this multifaceted question now – I researched, measured, dug, built, measured some more, dug some more, and planted. That’s the short answer. The detailed answer comes in the next section, where I’m going to tell you all about what’s actually growing in my hill.

Well, I ended up with quite a few blue and white flowers blooming in my hill by doing a lot of research, head-scratching, planning, measuring, digging, and planting (not to mention mulching). And I did a whole lot of uprooting, upheaving, and earth-moving, too. Without a doubt, designing and building my big blue and white hill took some doing. But really, it’s the plants growing there that deserve all the credit (assuming you believe there’s credit to be given – pardon my presumption). Those plants, and all of their respective traits, behaviors, and of course, colors, basically did all the real work.

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The Plants Growing on My Blue and White Hill: What, Where, and Why?

I’m not kidding when I tell you that, when it came to figuring out my planting scheme for my blue and white hill, the plants themselves really did do all the hard work. Each one possesses specific traits that pretty much dictate where it needs to be, what makes it happy, and of course, what it’s going to look like when it’s all grown up. For me, solving the planting puzzle required getting to know my plants. Once I got that bit of research under my belt, they practically planted themselves. Ok, not quite. But by learning about each one of my blue and white plants, before and after I bought them, I was able to come up with the planting plan for all of them. And the best way, I think, to explain this plan is to lay the blue and white roster out for you, section by section, plant by plant, trait by trait.

The Top of the Hill. The section at the very top of the hill features only two plants. They are both prolific white bloomers, one starts blooming in mid spring and the other in the early summer. They bloom until early fall and the individual blooms on both last a long time. I leave the spent dried blooms on the plants through late fall into early winter for seasonal interest. These two plants are as follows:

1. Annabelle Smooth Hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’). Hardiness zones 3-9. Height – 4′- 6′. Spread – 4′-6′. Light – partial shade to partial sun. Bloom color – white. Bloom time – late spring through early fall. Foliage – deciduous (but flowers on new wood so it can be pruned to the ground). Quantity in feature – one. Planted in the sunnier of the two positions at the top of this feature. Its long bloom time and long lasting blooms provide color and interest for much of the year.

2. Blushing Bride Bigleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Blushing Bride’). Hardiness zones 5-9. Height – 4′-6′. Spread – 5′-6′. Light – partial shade. Bloom color – white. Bloom time – summer through early fall. Foliage – deciduous. Quantity in feature – one. Planted in the shadier of the two spots at the top of the hill. This plant and its cousin ‘Annabelle’, guarantee dazzling white color for, and draw attention to, the highest point of the feature.

The next tier down. The next tier down (the ring immediately below, and encircling, the Annabelle and Blushing Bride actually contains eight plants. Sort of. Note: Because the hill is not perfectly circular, the plants that work their way down from the top are not located in perfectly uniform concentric rings. There’s a bit of play and overlap with regard to their exact positioning. This generality of plant location holds true not only for this tier, but for the middle and outermost (lowest tiers) as well. But for all intents and purposes, there are eight plants planted in this particular tier, as follows:

1. ‘The Original’ Bigleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Bailmer’). Hardiness zones 4-9. Height – 3′-5′. Spread – 4′-5′. Light – partial shade. Bloom color – blue in acidic soil, pink in alkaline soil – in my feature, they’re “bluish” so I’ll be adding soil acidifier to their locations before the end of summer and in spring next year. Bloom time – summer though early fall. Foliage – deciduous. Quantity in feature – four. As long as the Annabelle and Blushing Bride stay white, these, planted right next to them, will remain blue, guaranteeing long-lasting multi-seasonal contrast.

2. Old Fashioned White Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis ‘Alba’). Hardiness zones 3-8/9. Height – 30″-36″. Spread – 30″-36″. Light – partial to full shade. Bloom color – white. Bloom time – May through June. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – two. A great addition of white in mid spring through early summer. Planted alternately with two of the blue ‘Original’ Hydrangeas. They were planted as bareroots in mid-March of this year. Their flowering time helps ensure that there’s great color in the hill at almost all times of the year.

3. Aurora Blue Delphinium (Delphinium elatum ‘Aurora Blue’). Hardiness zones 3-9. Height – 3′-4′. Spread – 2′. Light – full to partial sun. Bloom color – deep blue with small,white centers. Bloom time – early through mid summer, and again in fall if flower stalks are cut back after first blooms become spent. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – two. I planted two immature plants in mid June on the sunny side of the hill next to, and immediately lower than, the Annabelle Hydrangea. These are very young plants and I’m expecting great performance from them next summer.

The middle tiers. This is a broad swath of only vaguely defined “rings” encompassing a lot of surface area in the hill, and containing large number and wide variety of plants. As this section makes its way around to the south and west area of the hill, it sort of morphs into the outermost, or lowest tier, due to the less-than-perfectly circular perimeter of the hill feature. What’s growing in the middle tiers? Here you go…

1. Fashionably Early Crystal Phlox (Phlox paniculata ‘Fashionably Early Crystal’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 28”-32″. Spread – 30″. Light – partial shade to full sun. Bloom color – white. Bloom time – early through late summer. Rebloomer. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – five, but spreading. Great long-lasting white for the middle tiers, performing well in a wide range of light conditions.

2. Belleza White Gaura (Gaura lindheimeri ‘Belleza White’). Hardiness zones 6-9. Height – 18″ (but up to 36″ with flower stems). Spread – 12″-24″. Light – full sun. Bloom color – white. Bloom time – early summer through fall. Foliage – herbaceous (although many of the other Gaura cultivar, I have growing in a different feature of the garden, ‘Gaudi Red’, have remained somewhat evergreen). Quantity in feature – eight or nine.

3. ‘Mel’s Blue’ Stokes’ Aster (Stokesia laevis ‘Mel’s Blue’). Hardiness zones 5-9. Height – 18″ (though my tallest are nearly 24″). Spread – 18″-20″. Light – partial sun to full sun. Bloom color – light violet-blue. Bloom time – July through early September. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – five. These plants are bigger and burlier than last year, when I planted them. Great later-in-the-season color to contrast with all the whites in the middle tiers. Mine bloom well even in partial shade.

4. Puff White Hybrid Aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii ‘Puff White’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 18″-24″ (though mine are now towering close to 36” in height – in my defense, this was a totally unexpected development). Spread – 18″-24″. Light – partial sun to full sun. Bloom color – white petals with yellow eyes. Bloom time – fall. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – five or six. Great late season color, helping to maintain and prolong the colors of this feature. I have made the theoretical mistake of including several of these in the outermost tier of the feature (as well as the middle tiers, where they all should be). Their great size has compromised the visibility of not just some of the shorter-growing plants above and behind them in higher tiers of the feature, but those growing close to them in the lower tiers, as well. I’ve got a hunch that harder pruning back in June would have solved this problem. More on this later.

5. Yeti Japanese Spirea (Spiraea japonica ‘Conspiyet’). Hardiness zones 4-9. Height – 3′. Spread – 3′. Light – partial shade to full sun. Bloom color – white. Bloom time – late spring through summer. Foliage – deciduous. Quantity in feature – one. Solid shrub for the middle tiers near the blue Original hydrangeas on the east side of the hill in partial shade.

6. Blue Balloon Flower (Platycodon grandiflorus). Hardiness zones 3-8. Height – 2′. Spread – 3′. Light – partial shade – full sun. Bloom color – deep violet blue. Bloom time – summer. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – one. Great, vivid violet-blue flower color on a sprawling plant provides great contrast to all the whites in the middle tiers on the north side of the hill.

7. Western Star Libra Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum maximum ‘Western Star Libra’). Hardiness zones 4-9. Height – 14″-24″. Spread – 18″-24″. Light – partial to full sun. Bloom color – white with yellow eyes. Bloom time – late spring to mid summer. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – six (or more due to colonization/spreading). Great middle tier substance and early summer white. These also occur in the lowest, outermost tier along the south west rim of the blue and white hill.

8. Blue Cardinal Flower (Lobelia siphilitica). Hardiness zones 4-8/9. Height – 2′-3′. Spread – 18″. Light – partial sun to full sun. Bloom color – purplish blue. Bloom time – mid summer through early fall. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – three. Great late season blue/purple contrast to the whites in the sunnier locations of the middle tiers.

9. Blue Line Corydalis (Corydalis x flexuosa/elata). Hybrid. Hardiness zones 5-9. Height – 18″. Spread – 24″. Light – partial shade to full shade. Bloom color – bright, metallic blue. Bloom time – mid spring to first frost. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – two. Great 3-season color for the shady southwest-ish areas of the middle tiers. Mine were planted as bareroots in late April and are still small. I’m expecting great foliage and flowering for next year.

10. True Blue Border Gentian (Gentiana x intermedia ‘True Blue’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 30″. Spread – 18″. Light – partial shade to full sun. Bloom color – vivid, true blue. Bloom time – mid summer to fall. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – seven. One of the most vivid, truest blues in the plant world for the middle tiers from the north to northwest areas of the feature. Mine were planted from 3″ pots as extremely small, immature plants on May 2nd of this year. They have begun to fill out and grow but are still too small and immature to flower.

11. Veronica ‘First Memory’ (Veronica longifolia ‘First Memory’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 24″. Spread – 22″. Light – partial sun to full sun. Bloom color – light, periwinkle blue. Bloom time – late spring through summer. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – five. Spires of light blue in the sunny north area of the middle tiers of the feature.

12. Snowcap Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum x superbum ‘Snowcap’). Hardiness zones 5-9. Height – 1′-2′. Spread – 1′. Light – partial sun to full sun. Bloom color – white with yellow eyes. Bloom time – summer. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – twelve or more (they have colonized and are spreading). These seem fairly tolerant of partial shade so they’re growing well in clumps on the northeast to east side of the hill in the middle tiers, where the sunlight is a bit dappled.

13. Hardy Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides). Hardiness zones 5-9. Height – 4”-12”. Spread – 12″-24″. Light – partial shade to full sun. Bloom color – vibrant blue. Bloom time – mid summer to early fall. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – eight (but increasing/spreading). Great late season blue color for a shady, middle tier area in the hill feature.

14. Montauk Daisy (Nipponanthemum nipponicum). Hardiness zones 5-9. Height – 2′-3′. Spread – 2-3′. Light – full sun. Bloom color – white with yellow eyes. Bloom time – September-October. Foliage – herbaceous, but forming thick, woody stems. Quantity in feature – five. A couple of these ended up in, or near, the outermost tier in two different locations. This was a mistake I may need to rectify by relocating them.

15. Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica). Hardiness zones 3-8. Height – 1′-2′. Spread – 12″ -18″. Light – partial to full shade. Bloom color – vibrant light blue. Foliage – herbaceous and ephemeral. Grows and flowers late winter through mid spring and then dies back until the next year. Quantity in feature – three. It spreads via rhizomes and fully colonizes where it is planted. I planted three in mid-March as bareroots. They grew successfully, though only one flowered. And although I’m sure there will be more popping up next year, they do die back in the early summer. These are planted in the shadiest section of the hill.

The lowest, outermost tiers. In a linear, or rectilinear planting feature, this area would be considered the front row, or front of the border. As it pertains to my blue and white hill, it’s the outermost section and it follows the circumference, or more accurately, the perimeter of the feature. In theory, this part of the hill should contain my shortest, lowest-growing plants. But as you’ll soon see, the best laid plans of mice and men…

1. Woodland Forget-Me-Not (Myosotis sylvatica). Hardiness zones 3-8. Height – 6″-12″. Spread – 8″-12″. Light – partial shade to full shade. Bloom color – periwinkle blue. Bloom time – April through May. Foliage – evergreen. Quantity in feature – twelve, originally. They have colonized heavily through self-sowing and there too many new individuals to count. Great color in early to mid spring for the shady southeast border of the hill.

2. Western Star Leo Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum maximum ‘Western Star Leo’). Hardiness zones 5-9. Height – 12″-18″ (I’ve never needed to prune them to keep them at 12″ in height – and routine deadheading keeps them blooming well into the summer). Spread – 12″-18″. Light – full sun. Bloom color – white with yellow eyes. Bloom time – June though August. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – fourteen planted originally, but they’ve colonized and there are currently more. Great white color during the summer months for the sunniest section of the hill’s outermost ring.

3. ‘Believer’ Hybrid Aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii ‘Yobeliever’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 12″. Spread – 12″-24″. Light – full sun. Bloom color – deep violet blue with yellow eyes. Bloom time – late summer through mid fall. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – two. Great late season color in the sunniest edges of the hill. This is one example of how my inexperience (and potential negligence – I might be able to fix this issue if I hurry) has caused a visibility issue. I’ve let this plant grow too tall for its front-of-the-border location. If I’m lucky, and if I move quickly, I can prune it down and still get some flowers for the fall.

4. ‘Days’ Hybrid Aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii ‘Yodays’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 12″-16″. Spread – 12″-24″. Light – full sun. Bloom color – sky blue with orange eyes. Bloom time – late summer through mid fall. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – one. More sunny perimeter, late season blue. Again, my inexperience has shown its ugly face here. I let this one grow too tall, as well. Gotta see if I can cut it back and still get great blooms.

5. ‘Dragon’ Hybrid Aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii ‘Yodragon’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 12″-24″. Spread – 12″-24″. Light – full sun. Bloom color – lavender-blue with yellow eyes. Bloom time – late summer through mid fall. (But here’s the kicker: it started blooming in early July. I can’t figure that one out. And, like my other hybrid asters, it’s grown way too tall for its location in the outer tier. Because I want it to continue blooming, I won’t be able to give it a hard pruning. This one is not on me!) Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – one.

6. Snow-in-summer (Cerastium tomentosum). Hardiness zones 3-8. Height – 4″-6″. Spread – 10″-18″. Light – partial sun to full sun. Bloom color – bright white. Bloom time – early May through early/mid June. Foliage – semi-evergreen/evergreen. Quantity in feature – two. Mid to late spring bright white for the sunny outer tier.

7. Grace Ward Lithodora (Lithodora diffusa ‘Grace Ward’). Hardiness zones 6-8. Height – less than 12″. Spread – creeping, groundcover-like habit can reach out 3′-4′ around and under other plants and over the edges of the hill feature. Light – partial sun to full sun. Bloom color – deep, vivid true blue – one of the truest blues in the plant world. Bloom time – summer. Foliage – evergreen. Quantity in feature – one. Fantastic blue all summer in the sunny northern outermost tier of the hill. I’d love to add more of these. If I need to relocate some wild hybrid asters, another one or two Grace Wards might just work!

8. Biokovo Hardy Geranium (Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘Biokovo’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 6″-12″. Spread – 12″-18″. Light – partial shade to full sun. Bloom color – white with pinkish sepals. Bloom time – mine bloom from late May through mid July. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – seven – but these are colonizing and spreading. Mine are growing in the shadier portions of the hill’s south-southeast facing outer tiers and provide great white contrast with the early blooming blues of the nearby Virginia Bluebells and Woodland Forget-Me-Nots.

9. White Wonder Haylodge Bellflower (Campanula x haylodgensis ‘White Wonder’). Hardiness zones 4-9. Height – 6″. Spread – 10″-12″. Light – partial shade to full sun. Bloom color – white. Bloom time – mid to late summer. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – two or three. I bought seven of these in full flower on February 27th of this year and planted them in late March. All but two or three have apparently perished. They’re located in a partial shade section of the hill among blue Forget-Me-Nots and blue primroses.

10. Birch’s Hybrid Bellflower (Hybrid of Campanula poscharskyana and Campanula portenschlagiana). Hardiness zones 4-9. Height – 6″. Spread – 20″. Light – partial shade to full sun. Bloom color – deep lavender-blue. Bloom time – late May through late summer. Foliage – evergreen. Quantity in feature – eight or nine. Great color in sun or shade in the outermost tier in late spring through the summer.

11. Early Bird Frosty Dianthus (Dianthus gratianopolitanus ‘Early Bird Frosty’). Hardiness zones 5-9. Height – 6″-8″. Spread – 8″-10″. Light – full sun. Bloom color – white. Bloom time – late spring to late summer. Foliage – evergreen. Quantity in feature – three. Great white contrast in summer with adjacent blues in the outermost tier on the north to northwest side of the feature.

12. Belarina Series Cobalt Blue Double Primrose (Primula vulgaris ‘Belarina Cobalt Blue’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 8″. Spread – 12″. Light – full shade to full sun. Bloom color – deep royal blue. Bloom time – early spring to late spring. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – seven. Incredible, vibrant deep blue color throughout most of spring for the outermost tiers of the blue and white hill.

13. Double White Primrose (Primula vulgaris ‘Double White’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 8″. Spread – 12″. Light – full shade to full sun. Bloom color – white. Bloom time – early spring to late spring. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – eight. Bright white springtime color and great contrast to the Belarina Cobalt Blue with which it directly mingles along the hill’s outermost tier.

14. Blue Zebra Primrose (Primula acaulis ‘Zebra Blue’). Hardiness zones 4-8. Height – 3″-6″. Spread – 8″. Light – full shade to partial shade. Bloom color – blue and white striped with yellow centers. Bloom time – early spring to mid June. Foliage – herbaceous. Quantity in feature – two. Planted in partial shade in the outer tiers, these bring blue and white together in one flower throughout the spring season.

15. Molly’s White Lenten Rose (Helleborus x hybridus ‘FrostKiss[TM] Molly’s White’). Hardiness zones 4-9. Height – 24″. Spread – 24″. Light – full shade to partial sun. Bloom color – white. Bloom time – late winter to late spring. Foliage – evergreen. Quantity in feature – one. I’ve saved the best for last. My favorite plant in the garden. My dog’s name was Molly. She passed away in 2001, and not a day goes by in which she’s not in my thoughts and in my heart. I think of this lovely plant as her namesake. This quiet beauty is big for the outermost tier. But it’s planted at the foot of the hill in a section where the slope is steeper, so its height doesn’t interfere with the visibility of any neighboring plants. It blooms in late winter, and continues to do so through late spring. It’s also planted in the shadiest section of the hill, where its beautiful white flowers beckon from within the emerging shadows cast by the springtime budding leaves of the trees towering just outside our garden in the adjacent forest.

That’s the blue and white hill’s current roster* – each and every plant’s specific traits and needs obliged and indulged, all levels of both earth and sunlight considered and accounted for. And this point really is at the heart of the matter of the blue and white hill’s design and implementation. The plants themselves are the feature’s key – they ultimately made all the rules. In the end, it’s always been about the plants. Just the plants.

At this point, all that remains of this article are my thoughts about my blue and white hill’s shortcomings (both actual and perceived), and which of these can be attributed to the capricious nature of nature itself, and which land squarely in the realm of my own responsibility. And of course, I’ll give you my thoughts about fixing these shortcomings.

*Note to readers: I’ve done my best to include here as many of the blue and white hill’s inhabitants as I could think of without further inundating you. There are, in fact, a number of plants growing in this feature which I haven’t listed/described here. A few varieties of salvia, bellflower, ajuga, liatris, platycodon, and veronica have not made this list. But they do indeed struggle valiantly in my big blue and white hill. I’m certain you’ll meet them here on The Renaissance Garden Guy in the coming months and years.

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Natural Shortcomings and Unanticipated Results, or, How Mother Nature Screwed Me Over

Like I said at the beginning of this article, I do, ultimately, think that my blue and white hill is beautiful. But I think it could be better. A lot better. And I sure do wish I could take a postcard-quality picture of it to show you – one where every single plant growing in the hill is in full flower and viewable in unobscured, total clarity. Oh well…

So the rest of this is going to go quick. I hate blaming someone else when something goes wrong – especially when it’s Mother Nature herself that’s the “somebody else” in question (even if it really is her fault). The next section – the one about my mistakes – is gonna go quick, too. Who wants to ramble on and on about his or her own stupidity?

Natural Shortcomings. Believe it or not, some of the issues with my blue and white hill I personally did not cause. Could I have anticipated some of them? Probably. Could I have fixed some of them? I’m sure gonna try. Is there anything I can do about some of them? Nope. The few curveballs that Mother Nature threw me when I designed and populated my blue and white hill are as follows:

Heavy rainfall. This played havoc with a number of my taller plants in this feature. The Annabelle Hydrangea’s huge blooms caused many of its taller stems to droop heavily downward. Looks bad and covers other plants. Also some of the longer stems on the taller Shasta Daisies, Asters, and Lobelia got hammered by the intense downpours we’ve had and did the same thing as the Annabelle – sagged and now look crappy and are in the way of other plants.
Bloom times. Certain plants bloom at certain times. That’s just the way it is. There’s just no way to get all my blues and whites blooming in concert, all year long. As a result of this sad fact of nature, I cannot, at any given moment in time, snap a pic of a fully blooming, fully flowered blue and white hill. I can promise that there will be some blues and whites blooming at any given time for a good part of the year, but not all of them, all the time.
Growth rates and immaturity. Some plants grow faster than others. When planted as bareroots or seedlings, plants with slow or medium growth rates obviuously won’t reach full size and flush out in full bloom as quickly as faster growing varieties. And when these slower movers have got mature, established plants for neighbors, it’s no contest. You ain’t gonna see ’em. Three examples of this are my Aurora Blue Delphiniums, planted as small, immature plants in mid June, my True Blue Border Gentians, planted as little more than seedlings, and my Blue Line Corydalis, which were planted as bareroots. Even though they’re all healthy and growing beautifully, they simply aren’t growing fast enough this year to achieve the visual impact of which they’ll eventually be capable (you’ll see those gorgeous blues in my pics next year, I’m sure). At the opposite end of the spectrum, my Old Fashioned White Bleeding Hearts, planted as bareroots in late winter this year, quickly shot up to over two feet in height and flowered beautifully. They’ve more than held their own visually, growing alongside my Original Hydrangeas.
Unanticipated results. When I planted my occupants of the blue and white hill, I carefully took into account each one’s respective traits. As discussed, facts like projected height and spread were critical in the hill’s planting layout. So when Plant A is only supposed to get a foot-and-a-half tall and it grows to three feet in height and ends up hiding everything next to it and behind it, I definitely assign that phenomenon to the “Unsatisfactory Unanticipated Result” category. That’s exactly what happened with my Puff White Hybrid Asters. According to both the grower and the retailer, these were only supposed to grow to 18″ in both height and spread. Maybe two feet at the most. I felt I could deal with them mingling in the lowest, outermost tier or two. I knew I could always pinch/prune them back. They started really shooting up in early June, and by the middle of the month they were huge. I did prune them, but apparently not enough. They are literally three feet tall and they’re hiding everything around them. This also happened with all of my other Hybrid Asters (Believer, Dragon, and Days) – they all got way bigger than they were supposed to. Adding to this problem is the phenomenon of extremely premature blooming for the Dragon (I can’t even prune it unless I want lose the blooms).

Adjustments and Corrections. The following are my thoughts on what, if anything, I can do about these conditions.

Addressing the effects of heavy rainfall. The biggest problem in the hill that’s resulted from the heavy rains is the flopping stems of some of the taller, heavy-flowered plants. My potential soultions are plant-specific and are as follows: 1) Removing blooms. The Annabelle Hydrangea’s got massive blooms to spare. These are heavy to begin with, and when they get wet, they really weigh the stems down. By snipping a few of them off, I’ll substantially improve the plant’s appearance, and improve the viewability of its neighbors, as well. And we’ll get some great cut flowers out of the deal to boot. 2) Staking. Staking is tough in a circular feature like this. I feel that the presence of stakes, at least at this stage of this features growth and development, could look worse than the flopping stems themselves. Next year, however, the use of stakes might just work to my advantage in at least one case -that of my Aurora Blue Delphiniums growing next to the Annabelle. The Delphs are going to need staking for sure. Their huge, heavy spires of flowers are too heavy for their stems to hold them high without assistance. The stakes could be inserted unobtrusively behind the Delphs and could serve to not only hold them up, but could give the Annabelle something to lean on, too. In this case, the stakes should be hidden among all the foliage. 3) Hard pruning and stem removal. Some of my Western Star Libra and Snowcap Shasta Daisies are huge. I planted them as year-old plants last year and some of their outemost sagging stems are becoming spent. With fresh new growth (and in fact, new plants appearing via their rhizomatous natures), I can easily dispense with the rain-soaked saggers by cutting them off at ground level. Also, some of the aforementioned wild and wooly hybrid asters have got stems to spare which have also gotten belted by the rain. I’m going to cut some of the wilder ones totally off.
Addressing the effects of staggered bloom times. Not a thing I can do about this one. And I’m ok with that. I love the wide variety of plants growing in this feature, and I love the fact that there will be at least a fair amount of color, at virtually almost any given time of year, flowering and displaying in it. I just wish I could take a picture of everything fully blooming, all at one time. How cool would that be?
Addressing the effects of individual plant growth rate and maturity. Nothing short of planting all fully mature plants in this feature is going to fix this issue. It is what it is, and I’m happy with that. I enjoy seeing my young plants grow and mature.
Dealing with unanticipated results. I’m pretty sure all of my hybrid asters, including the gigantic Puff Whites, are sufficiently densely branched and tough enough to withstand a hard pruning. I believe by really cutting them down next June, I can keep them much tidier and still get great blooms. My only concern regarding this methodology is whether or not it’s too late to do it now. One thing is for sure – it’s definitely too late to prune the prematurely-blooming Dragon without losing flowers. I can certainly cut the others back, but will I sacrifice all the great fall color their setting buds promise? I think I’m gonna give it a shot.

My Mistakes, or, How I Screwed Myself Over

Like I said, nobody likes to admit how dumb they are. At least I don’t. So, I don’t want to belabor this point any longer than is absolutely necessary. It is, however, important for me to relay to you the knowledge and experience I’ve gleaned as a result of making mistakes. From the beginning, I have freely admitted that I am a novice gardener. Inexperience is my middle name. For me, gardening mistakes are always problematic and time-consuming, and they’re also usually expensive. But, I suppose there is a silver lining. With each mistake I make, and each subsequent solution I come up with (either by discovering it for myself or researching it after the fact), both my knowledge and experience grow. And as a result, I get closer to the point where I might actually be able to use my real middle name again, which is George. In any case, if telling you about my gardening mistakes, and what I’ve learned from them, is helpful and informative (or at least entertaining), then I’ve accomplished what I’ve set out to do.

My Mistakes. So what mistakes did I make in executing the design and planting of my blue and white hill? Since there are many which I now know about, and probably even more which I don’t, I’ll be merciful (to you and myself) and just talk about a few, and, what I might be able to do about them.

Planting too densely. If you’ve read any of my other posts, you’ll know that, many times, I’ve copped to the fact that I like to plant things closer together than they’re supposed to be planted. I think my penchant for cramming growing things together may have bitten me in the ass this time. When plants are planted closely together, within recommended and accepted limits, they look great and behave as they should. When they’re planted too close to one another, they become crowded and, as a result, bad things can happen. Plants need air circulation and sunlight to survive and thrive. If they’re planted too closely together, they can be deprived of one or both of these things. The ability of a plant to actually move, or turn, parts of itself in reaction to a specific stimulus is known as a tropism. A phototropism is this movement in response to sunlight. I’ve noticed a few cases where specific stems on some of the plants in the hill look, at first glance, like they’ve been flattened by rain or blunt force/pressure. Upon closer inspection, no physical impact/damage is evident. These particular plants, which I believe have each been planted too closely to their neighbors, appear to be struggling to get sunlight. Their stems have actually turned and twisted in such a way as to “sneak around” adjacent plants and then turn upward toward the light. I believe these instances represent genuine phototropisms. This seems to be the case where the overhanging branches of a sprawling Puff White Hybrid Aster looks as if it has forced a Blue Cardinal Flower to grow some of its stems “sideways” and then upwards in order to reach sunlight. Additionally, if individual plants are planted too closely to one another, their respective root systems can end up competing for moisture and nutrients.
Placing oversized specimens in the outermost tier. This problem refers specifically to a couple of the Montauk Daisies. I believed that by actively pruning them, I could successfully achieve white, fall blooms for the outermost tier. I planted them there having full knowledge of their growth habits. After watching them develop into massive, substantial bushes, I now believe that pruning them may not be enough to prevent them from obscuring neighboring plants. I’ve pruned them once in June and they’re massive again. If this doesn’t work out, it’s totally on me. The case of my overgrown Puff White Hybrid Asters (and the other three types of hybrid aster, as well) being in the outer tier is also clearly a mistake, but as discussed, the performance of these plants far exceeded projections. Ultimately, my lack of experience did contribute to this situation. A more experienced gardener (someone familiar with the growth habits of hybrid asters) could have recognized this potential problem and located the plants elsewhere, or selected a type of plant more suited to the outer tier locations.

Adjustments and Corrections. As I mentioned earlier, there are other instances where my inexperience has led to less than satisfactory results (I’ve killed more than a few plants along the way), and I’m sure there are other mistakes I’ve made with this feature which are just waiting to rear their ugly heads. But at this point, I’ll settle for telling you about those I’ve mentioned here in this section, and what my plan(s) of action is/are to rectify them.

Addressing the problem of overly-dense planting. As my pruning, pinching, and deadheading skills improve, I’m confident that my ability to reign in overly domineering vegetation will likewise improve. I believe effective pruning will mitigate most, or at least some, of the effects of overcrowding. I do think a big part of the overcrowding issue arises as a result of the riotous growth of the hybrid asters. These asters, which are located in both the outer tier and middle tiers, have simply grown much, much larger than anticipated. They, more than any other type of plant in the hill, seem to be responsible for the overcrowding problem here. (But, I’m sure I’m still guilty of planting many of the other plants in this feature too close to one another). Like I said, I’ll try pruning first. There’s a delicate balance to strike between pruning hard enough to manage size, and pruning judiciously enough to ensure good flowering. If this technique alone doesn’t do the trick, I’ll probably resort to relocating some of the plants. Keep checking in to The Renaissance Garden Guy site right here. This time next year, you might just see a few “Looking For a Good Home” notices.
Addressing the problem of excessive size in the outermost tier(s). Once again, I’ll try pruning first. If I can’t prune without losing blooming power, I’ll have to move some plants. The targets? Two of my Montauk Daisies and, naturally, all of my hybrid asters.

Yep, I’ve definitely made mistakes. Some I’ve talked about here, some I haven’t, and some I’m sure I’ve made, but don’t know it yet. I’m hoping that pruning alone works for the mistakes I’ve talked about here. If not, I’ll be doing some digging.

This pretty much wraps up the story of my blue and white hill. Hopefully I’ve adequately explained what it is, how I designed and built it, what’s actually growing in it, why it’s not as great as I believe it could be, and what I might be able to do to improve its overall health and appearance. And even though I don’t think my hill is all that photogenic, I hope the pictures I’ve included here at least captured some of the beauty of the growing green, blue, and white little beings which call it home. It’s not perfect, but all in all, I guess it’s still kind of pretty.

But just wait ’til next year – killer, I’m tellin’ ya.

This was a long one. Getting tired of me yet? I sure hope not. It’s entirely my pleasure to relay to you the excitement, enthusiasm, and affection I feel for my garden and all of its inhabitants. One of the best ways for me to do that is to lay out my thinking and game plan. And since my blue and white hill is such a prominent feature of my garden, and the methodology behind its creation is so thoroughly representative of what I’ve done, what I currently do, and what I will do to my garden as a whole, I felt it was worthwhile to give you the whole spiel. And in the process, I do hope I was able to get some interesting, if not useful, information into your hands.

As always, thank you so much for your readership and support. And for your patience.

Cheers, and Happy Gardening!

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Sharon Johnson

July 7, 2022 at 9:12 pm

I love your blue and white!! So much planning and work ! It’s gorgeous. I also saw your beautiful water feature. The rock wall in the back, in a pic. Oh my goodness I love it. Congratulations on such a magnificent garden.

John
July 8, 2022 at 12:16 am
Thank you so much, Sharon! I truly appreciate your kind thoughts and your interest. I’m thrilled that you like the garden. It’s definitely a work in progress, and I’ve got a long way to go to get it finished. Slowly but surely, as they say. Thanks once again!