Purple Coneflower, Clary Sage and Joe Pye Weed

In the Rose Garden this week is the beautiful plant combination of Echinacea purpurea, Salvia sclarea, and Eutrochium purpureum.

Summer is here at Havenwood. :) 

July at Havenwood ~ GBBD July 2015

The Rose Garden

Hello all! Welcome to our Pennsylvania garden in July! Come take a look around...

Gilmore Gardens in September 2014 ~ Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

The Hill Garden is still full of color this month: Allium tuberosum & Sedum 'Autumn Joy'.

Welcome to Gilmore Gardens in Pennsylvania, zone 5!

There are still quite a few blooms over at Gilmore, even though we have not been living near it or caring make for it at all. About once a month to month-and-a-half, I do a big cleanup of weeds and deadheading the flowers.... That is it! That is all it takes to keep this garden going right now. It really has confirmed to me, though many people just do not believe it, that a garden on this scale can be plannned to pretty much take care of itself by having well designed planting schemes.

(Note to newcomers: This is our previous garden, which is a small town lot about a half mile from our new garden at Havenwood. Read my 'about my gardens' for more info!)

Gardening in Pennsylvania ~ GBBD November 2013

Our Rose in November snow.

Welcome to my garden in November!

We had a week of snow here in Pennsylvania. One bright morning, I went out for a walk to see the unusual sights that come from having snow this early in the year...

Gardening in Pennsylvania ~ October 2013 GBBD

The Hill Garden with Canna 'King Humbert', Echinacea purpurea, Berberis purpurea, and glorious yellow maples (Acer) leaves for autumn.

Welcome to my small town Pennsylvania garden in October!

I would be delighted to show you around our corner here in US zone 5. The foliage colors are intensifying this month, though they have not yet reached their climax. Our first frost is still on its way this year. Hurray for a few more weeks with tender plants in the garden! The begonias, cannas, dahlias and annuals are still adding their pretty bit to the mix. Come talk a walk around...

Gardening in Pennsylvania ~ GBBD August 2013

Pink Anemone japonica, Spirea 'Goldflame', red Canna 'King Humbert' and white Cosmos fill the Front Walk garden this week.

Welcome to August in Pennsylvania! We have quite a few flowers this month since the Japanese anemones and meadow rues have started their long season of bloom and the black-eyed Susans are prettying the curb. Come take a walk around!

Echinacea purpurea and Canna 'King Humbert'

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) and the red-edged leaves of Canna 'King Humbert' in our Hill Garden this August.

While we are busy taking kids to the pool, picking local blueberries, biking some short trails, enjoying tea and fresh blueberry peach galette on the patio, buying "new" used books at our local library sale, swinging in the hammock, playing with our new bunny Ginger, etc., it is nice to know that the garden can just hold its own for a little while. Purple coneflower (and also the white ones, also in this bed) make summer color look effortless.

Hope you are all out enjoying the fruits and joys of summer!
~Julie

Gardening in Pennsylvania ~ GBBD July 2013

The Hill Garden this week with purple coneflowers in bloom.

Take a walk around our garden this July to see what is blooming in the heat!

It has been nearly 90 degrees (32 C) everyday this week and very dry. Watering needs to happen every other day for my veggies and containers, which gives me an opprotunity to walk (slowly!) around and appreciate the flowers that thrive during these sultry summer days.

First Snow at Gilmore Gardens

Snow on the Circle Lawn and Shade Path.

After a week of beautiful weather at the end of November, we finally had our first snow of the season at Gilmore Gardens.

The Last of November

Echinacea purpurea in the Hill Garden

Gardening in Pennsylvania ~ August GBBD 2012

Sedum 'Autumn Joy' and Mandevilla 'Pretty Pink' in PA zone 5 for August.

Welcome to August in my Pennsylvania, zone 5 garden! It is not what I had hoped that it would be, but the garden is perking up after having some much needed rain in the past two weeks. I took these photos last night after another rain came.

Large-flowered hardy hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutos 'Pink Elephant') in our Driveway Garden is blooming away this month.

More in the Driveway Garden: Hibiscus 'Pink Elephant',white Miscanthus 'Dixieland',  a tall blue Buddleia and Agastache foeniculum 'Golden Jubilee'. The ground cover in front here is Sedum 'Acre' which is a much used cover plant in our gardens.

Gardening in Pennsylvania ~ GBBD July 2012

Lavender and purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) in the Driveway Garden for July

Welcome to Pennsylvania in July! It has been a hot dry summer here this year, as it has been in most of the US. My gardens have had very little supplementary watering this season. Everything was looking tired around the edges until we had a garden clean-up this past weekend.

Garden Bloggers' Foliage Day ~ November 2011

Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snowflake'

For Foliage Day, I saved up all of the photos I have from this month that display the changing colors in our zone 5 Pennsylvania garden. We have had a particularly dry November, which has meant that the leaves have stayed on the trees and bushes longer than normal. Once the frost hit, the leaves began into their color change and we had the opportunity to enjoy it step-by-step over a couple of weeks instead of in a few days.

Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snowflake' (above) is newly planted in the Shade Path. It has wonderful autumn color. It can be seen in its diminutive size at the very right in the photo below.

One thing I am really enjoying is seen how the evergreens around the house begin to pop when surrounded by the yellows, reds and oranges. The small rounded green bushes in in the pachysandra are actually forsythias, which have kept their leaves much longer than the other deciduous bushes (note the mock orange, Philadelphus, on the right in yellow leaf).  I have been clipping them hard to retain their shape in this small area, which I know is a horror to some gardeners. But at the time of planting their price was right (since they grew from cuttings tended on our apartment window sill for years), and I really like the added yellow they give to the spring display in April. So, I will probably go on clipping until we are no longer tending/living at this garden; then we will have to do something drastic.

View across the Front Walk with the fluffy seed heads from Japanese Anemones

I love the Spirea 'Goldflame' in all seasons. It has red/orange buds nearly all winter, explodes with color in May, and still looks good in the Front Walk in November with the fluffy white seed heads of Japanese Anemone. 

Topiary Alberta spruce in front of blazing Euonymus alatus, a known invasive

Spirea 'Goldflame' and Japanese Anemone

Gray skeleton of Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia 'Little Spire') and seed heads of purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)

A glimpse of the foliage on the Hill Garden, which is still looking very alive this month (see more in GBBD).

Euonymus alatus, a known invasive, drops its leaves for the year

Yellow vibrancy of the weeping cherry (Prunus) in Cherry Corner

Just days later, the Prunus is stripped of its leaves for the year

Hydrangea quercifolia

The differing purple tint of this native oakleaf hydrangea bush contrasts with the one planted at the other end of the Shade Path garden. 

Native aster turning with Geranium macrorrhizum 'Bevans Variety' by the fence

Forsythia under planted with wood spurge

Lastly, a punch of color from our forsythia in the Front Woodland. It looks great under planted with Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae, know as Mrs. Robb's bonnet.

Happy Garden Bloggers' Foliage Day! 
Thanks to Christina at Creating My Own Garden of the Hesperides for hosting on the 22nd of each month.

Frost this morning...

Clematis on the butterfly trellis by the Circle Lawn

I am encouraged this morning by remembering that this frosty beauty is part of the process of  
               creating art in the garden.
                                                All must fall for spring to rise.

There are reports that Sissinghurst Castle is likely to have its frost any day now too. There is also comfort in commonality. All gardens, big and small, ancient and new, will face this fate: to live through the harshest part of their year in order to enjoy the season to come.

The Hill Garden on an October morning...

View down the Front Walk to the Hill Garden

Canna 'King Humbert' with Echinacea purpurea and tufts of shasta daisy foliage (see July).

I love it in front of  the yellow fall foliage!

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) will be left up for the whole winter.

Still some rosy glow, thankfully!

I am scheming some succession posts for the winter months... but if you want to take a look for yourself, I have a rough outline in the Hill Garden in July post.

I hope those of you who garden in the cool areas of the northern hemisphere are able to savor these last fleeting garden moments of the year! Take an extra walk around your garden or the park today to drink it in!

Once you have finished enjoying this foliage for October, you might enjoy going on to Christina at Creating My Own Garden of the Hesperides to read about more foliage across the world for Garden Bloggers' Foliage Day, which is the 22nd of each month.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day ~ October 2011

Dahlia 'Peaches 'n Cream'

Some floriferous views from Gilmore Gardens!
Welcome to our Pennsylvania, USA garden (hardiness zone 5). We are fortunate not to have had our first frost yet this month. Sometimes the snow flies on October 1st! Most of the plantings are similar to those from September, but the asters are not to be missed this month. And my favorite are on the Shade Path garden, which lives between our home and the sidewalk...
 
The Shade Path:

Begonia 'Big Rex', white-flowered native aster (Doellingeria umbellata) and Digitalis grandiflora.

Our Shade Path is still stuffed with flowers. I know that its days are numbered, so I am trying to soak up the color so that it will last me until March. The native flat-topped aster (Doellingeria umbellata) floats like a cloud over the rest of the pink and yellow planting. The yellow perennial foxgloves (Digitalis grandiflora) have been blooming strong since I first sighted them in September (see their first bloom in June).

Sedum 'Frosty Morn' under Northern Sea Oats (Chasmanthium latifolium).

Dark-leaved annual begonias with chartreuse Sedum 'Acre' and under hung by the white flat-topped aster.

Evening light through the trellises around the Circle Lawn, at the end of the Shade Path.

Cherry Corner & the Front Walk:

Reds and purples have been the themes in the annual plantings this year for these gardens in front of the house.

Dahlia 'Heat Wave' has over three dozen blooms in the Front Walk this weekend.

Canna 'King Humbert' and Dahlia 'Heat Wave' with pink cosmos at their feet.

Canna 'King Humbert' in the October morning light.

Catmint (Nepeta 'Walker's Low') re-blooming under the dahlias. (See it in June.)

The Hill Garden:

View of the Hill Garden from the driveway.

Our Hill Garden gets the "best transformation" award (see it before). I so enjoy walking all the way around it and appreciating how the plantings have filled in the past three years. The bushes have more substance, as well as the perennials I have divided and seeded here. It is amazing to remember that it all came from about a dozen pots!

Rosa 'The Fairy' is pop pink in front of Sedum 'Acre'. Last year it bloomed for Thanksgiving in the snow (see it here).

Purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) that I seeded here, in front of Sedum 'Autumn Joy' and Canna 'King Humbert'.

Another shot of the pink tapestry on the Hill. Purple barberry bushes behind Rosa 'The Fairy'.

Seed heads of Allium tuberosum leaning over the lamb's ears, Sedum 'Autumn Joy' and barberry bushes.

Stachys byzantina, Sedum 'Autumn Joy', purple barberry, Canna 'King Humbert'.

My giant patch of lamb's ears (Stachys byzantina) all came from one pot just two years ago. It is happy here... very well drained and sunny.

The Driveway Garden:

A brilliant yellow backdrop for the Driveway Garden.

I could not resist adding a foliage photo for this garden. All of the mature maples in our back yard turn a brilliant yellow in October, which makes the perfect setting for the flowers that are blooming.

Miscanthus 'Dixieland' in front of purple Aster 'Peter III'

Loving my last grass purchase! I can't appreciate enough the lightness added to this boarder by the white variegation of Miscanthus 'Dixieland'... especially in contrast to the vibrant purple of Aster hybrida 'Peter III'.

Dahlia 'Peaches 'n Cream' soaring over the Driveway Garden.

We have one more dahlia in the gardens this year, Dahlia 'Peaches 'n Cream'. My girls prefer calling it the "candy corn flower", as the color graduation on its petals matches that of the beloved fall candy. (The front of this flower can be seen in the opening photo for this post.)

Pumpkins brightening our walk to the car.

Thank you for joining us for the October garden walk!
We are really happy with the garden this fall and hope that you have enjoyed it too!

A big THANKS to Carol at May Dreams for hosting GBBD! Visit her to see more flowers from gardens around the world!

If you are interested in keeping up with Gilmore Gardens at Wife, Mother, Gardener, just take a look at the right-hand column. 
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