Are you inspired by gardens with perennial interest, but don’t know what makes them sparkle? Well, you’re in luck! Join Smithsonian Gardens’ Horticulturist Janet Draper for a webinar disclosing easy design principles and learn how to put foliage first!

Webinar Video

Websites

Books

  • The Art of Gardening: Design Inspiration and Innovative Planting Techniques from Chanticleer: R. William Thomas 
  • Essential Perennials: The Complete Reference to 2700 Perennials for the Home Garden: Ruth Rogers Clausen and Thomas Christopher 
  • Herbaceous Perennial Plants: A Treatise on Their Identification, Culture and Garden Attributes: Allan Armitage 
  • Manual of Woody Landscape Plants: Their Identification, Ornamental Characteristics, Culture, Propagation and Uses: Michael Dirr 
  • Essential Native Trees and Shrubs for the Eastern United States: The Guide to Creating a Sustainable Landscape: Tony Dove and Ginger Woolridge 

Plants by Slide

Slides 4-5: Enid A. Haupt Garden – mass plantings of Angelonia (white) and Scaveola (Blue), Clipped Alternanthera (Yellow and green), Dusty Miller (Silver), Lobelia erinus (blue) under Columnar Taxus (Yew) and Crossandra infundibuliformis (Orange)    

Slide 9:   Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ with Paeonia ‘Chiffon Clouds’, Yucca rostrata (silver), Deutzia ‘Chardonnay Pearls’ (Chartruese foliage) .   

Slide 11: with perennials, Start with FOLIAGE then the flower is a bonus!  

Slide 12: look at Plant Habit or Form, Texture, foliage color. 

Slide 13: Spirea thunbergii ‘Ogon’ (Feathery Chartreuse), Iris sibirica  ‘Butter and Sugar’, (Straplike vertical) , Paeonia ‘Goaishu’ (Tree peony- green mass), plus  Orlaya grandiflora (white flower), Carex ‘Everillo’ (Golden mound)   

Slide 14: ‘Prizm’ Kale, (ruffled silvery grey—and yes!  Very edible!)  Ocimum ‘Pesto Perpetuo’ (Basil – upright variegated),  Amsonia hubrichtii (feathery green),  Pentas ‘Red Velvet’,  Acalypha reptans (red ground hugger)  

Slide 15: Start with one Strong plant and build on it.   

Slide 16:  Furcraea foetida ‘Mediopicta’ (bold  variegation),  Thunbergia  grandifolia  (velvety foliage)  Euphorbia  tirucalli “Firesticks”,  Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ (little white flower)   

Slide 17: Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ (Heart shape variegated foliage),  Disporopsis pernyi  (glossy green), Semiaquilegia – maroon flower in rear   

Slide 18: Tricyrtis ‘Togen’, Corydalis lutea (feather blue grey foliage) and Hakenochloa macra ‘Aureola’ (grass)   

Slide 19: Hosta ‘Halcyon’,  Hakenochloa macra ‘Aureola’  (Hakone Grass),  Rhodea japonica and Hydrangea macrophylla (mop head hydrangea)   

Slide 20:  Solanum quitoense thorns   

Slide 21:  Solanum quitoense,  Sanchezia speciosa, and Gossypium herbaceum  ‘Nigra’ (Black Cotton)   

Slide 22: REPETITION- Same Plant   

Slide 23: White Birches at  Olbricht  Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin  

Slide 24: Repeating Containerized Buxus (Boxwood), Ontario, Canada  

Slide 25: Paeonia ‘Bartzella’ (yellow tree peony), Spirea  thunbergii  ‘Ogon’, Rosa mutabili  (pink in rear), Phlox ‘May Breeze’   

Slide 26: Repetition of Color   

Slide 27:  Podophyllum, Mustard ‘Red Giant’,  Epimedium   

Slide 28: Paeonia ‘Bartzella’, Aquilegia canadensis, Orlaya   grandiflora (white)   

Slide 29: Playing with Complementary or Contrasting Colors  

Slide 30:  Tagetes  (Marigold) and Euphorbia  chariacus  ‘Wufenii’   

Slide 31:  Lilium  ‘Black Beauty’ and Eucomis  ‘Sparkling Burgundy’   

Slide 32: MASS!  

Slide 33: Asparagus  densiflorus  ‘Meyersii’ in Urn with Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ oozing over wall  

Slide 34: Athyrium nipponicum  ‘Pictum’  (Painted Fern),  Geranium ‘St. Olga’,  Bletilla striata, (Hot Pink) Nepeta  ‘JoAnna Reed’   

Slide 35: Erysimum  ‘Citrona Orange’,  Veronica ‘Waterperry  Blue’, Carex  buchanaii  ‘Red Rooster’,  Buxus, Yuca  rostrata, Pinus  thubergii  

Slide 36: Agave, repeated silver color in Plectranthus argentatus, Orange vine, Pseudognoxys chenopodioides  (Mexican Flame Vine), Veronica, Nicotiana   

Most importantly, Relax and Have fun!  If you don’t like it, grab the shovel!   

Janet Draper  
Drapeja@si.edu