Drop dead gorgeous

Include these perennials in your garden this summer and you won't be sorry!

There are, honest to doG, some plants that just take your breath away. I’ve stumbled across many in my travels but the best thing is, of course, to have them in your own garden. Here are some of the jewels from my old garden, the one I left after some 30+ years….some of them I’ve brought along to the new place, so I’ll see them again.

Paeonia ‘Garden Treasure’

This beauty is a choice Itoh peony called ‘Garden Treasure’ (Paeonia ‘Garden Treasure’) and like the regular herbaceous peonies, it blooms once in the summer, but oh the blooms! They are not as large as those of Japanese tree peonies, but they are palm sized.

Itoh peonies represent a cross between herbaceous peonies (like the old fashioned ‘Sarah Bernhardt’) and the deciduous (that is, they don’t die down to the ground every winter) shrub peonies that are known as Japanese tree peonies. Peony breeders had long tried to make this cross successful but were met with failure every time …. that is, until the Japanese specialist peony grower, Toichi Itoh, succeeded in 1948 (read a great post on Itoh’s work here, by Blaine Marchand of the Canadian Peony Society). As a result, the American Peony Society named this hybrid group after him.

This cross did several things: it created a whole new colour range and it created a peony that didn’t need fussing — no staking, no heartache of bent stems and shattered petals on the ground after the inevitable spring rains.

Paeonia ‘Garden Treasure’ - close-up

The glorious blooms of this Itoh peony not only have silky petals, flushed centres and fluttery stamens, but they grow on shorter stems that are self-supporting. These peonies never grow taller than about three feet while blooming, which takes place for about two weeks in late spring or early summer. More than this, the foliage is lush, dense and a rich green, it is not bothered by pests or disease, and the entire plant does not ovewhelm a garden bed — allowing you to easily buy more than one! They’ll be happy if you give them 3’ square of space that gets at least half a day of sun, preferably afternoon.

Yellow is not often found in the peony world and yet it is one of my favourite flower colours. Not brassy yellow like Rudbeckia or other glaring golds, but a soft buttery yellow. ‘Garden Treasure’ is indeed a treasure and you’ll have to search for it because it is fairly rare; try some of the smaller local (Ottawa) nurseries like Whitehouse Perennials or Kiwi Gardens. Otherwise, you can find ‘Bartzella’, another yellow Itoh peony, at Budd Gardens.

By the way, the perennial playing a supporting role with the peony is lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis), an easy (read: self-seeding) plant that can be grown best in filtered sun — the way it’s furry leaves capture water droplets is often compared to drops of mercury.

Clematis x jackmanii

You’ll likely know this spectacular clematis, known as Clematis x jackmanii, the large flowered vine that has graced a gazillion gardens since its introduction to the world in 1862, four years after it was created. The nurseryman and horticulturist responsible was, you guessed it, George Jackman, who ran Jackman & Sons in Surrey, England.

This hybrid was the first of its kind in the clematis world due to its large richly coloured blooms and spawned many others crossed with Clematis lanuginosa. But disaster struck when the dreaded clematis wilt, a fungal disease that swiftly kills entire vines, started to attack these new hybrids, as the parent C. lanuginosa was highly susceptible. The devastation was so serious that in 1880 the English clematis hybridizing industry came to a sudden stop. Of course, clematis wilt is still a problem today, but ensuring you have a strong plant, with the root ball set a good four inches below the surface of the soil to protect the latent buds, will help protect your vine from succumbing completely.

This clematis blooms for weeks between mid and late summer, showing off deep rich purple blooms that span 5-7” across. It benefits from a sunny site but will like it if you give its roots shade, either by planting shallow rooted groundcovers at its base, allowing perennials to provide a foliage umbrella from a foot or two away or by mulching heavily. Give it a sturdy and tall support for its petioles (the stems holding the leaves) to twine around and you will have vine that reaches up to ten feet in the air. This clematis blooms on both old and new wood, so you can either prune it moderately in the spring or let it go. I like to prune it down because I find the leaves from the previous season hang on to the old stems and look unsightly. Either way, you’ll be rewarded with gorgeous jewel toned flowers on vines that get more and more vigorous as each year goes by.

Hosta ‘June’ and Allium siculum (also known as Nectaroscordum siculum)

I’ve met some people who say to me, “Oh, I don’t like hosta,” to which I always respond, “WHAT?” But I know where they’re coming from. They are familiar with that horrible, ubiquitous, writhing variety called Hosta undulata, that can be found in every neglected garden. Or they have seen one too many hosta being shredded by slugs or decimated by hungry deer. Or perhaps the worst, those hosta that find themselves growing in the hot sun and consequently become scorched and limp.

Not those hosta! This hosta (above) is a glorious cultivar known as ‘June’ and it sports a spectacular graduation of colour streaks in the leaves — powder blue, lime green, yellow and every shade in between. It forms a tidy clump and appears completely oblivious to slugs and every other insect. This cultivar benefits from having some morning sun to bring out the best colour, and holds up well until first frost, looking even more glorious with a tapestry of firey autumn leaves around them.

‘June’ grows only to about 16” tall and spreads about three feet wide, providing a highlight in any shade garden and contrasting well with dainty foliage like that of fern or in this picture, the delicate leaves of Corydalis, Astilbe and Dicentra. The nodding bells appearing on the right are those of Allium siculum or Nectaroscordum siculum or Mediterranean bells, an attractive ornamental bulb of the Amaryllidaceae family. A beautiful pairing and one that will thrive in a shady spot in any garden.

Thalictrum ‘Lavender Mist’

I LOVE this plant. Really. I adore it. I first saw it at Whitehouse Perennials in Almonte and knew I had to have it. It is called Thalictrum ‘Lavender Mist’ and is known commonly as meadowrue, of which twenty-two species can be found in North America. This cultivar has tiny dancing violet flowers on the top of tall wirey stems that can reach upwards of eight feet. The stems have a purplish tinge to them as do the leaves, which are in delicate sprays and resemble that of columbine and honeysuckle both. The plant begins to produce flowers in the summer and continues blooming through to fall. It is a perfect complement to other shade loving perennials, providing height and delicacy. Neither deer nor rabbits are attracted to it so you need not worry about its fate. Happiest in a place where it receives filtered light throughout the day, this plant shouldn’t need staking and will sway in the summer breeze making you so happy to be its keeper.

I hope you think about including some of these perennials in your garden this year. I can promise that you won’t be disappointed! You can be sure that I’ll return in a few months to show you how my new garden is growing…stay tuned!