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Gardening ideas: from Philadelphia to southern Ontario

© Lorraine Flanigan

What do the gardens of Philadelphia have in common with gardens here in southern Ontario? Although Philadelphia may be a zone or two warmer, the gardeners of Philadelphia are dealing with the same things we are: small spaces, inner city shade, great plants, extending the season - and through it all, they're adding their personal style to their green spaces.

Travelling with a group of garden writers, a few weeks ago I visited many private and public gardens in and around Philadelphia, and came back with some inspirations for my own garden here in Toronto. Here are the Top 10 garden ideas from my travels in Philadelphia:

1. Hot Hot Hot: it's what you get when you mix the bright oranges and reds of huge variegated-leaved canna lilies with bold and bright limes and chartreuse. Stunning!

2. Succulents: grown in containers, planted in patio stones, or giant yuccas mixed into the borders, they make ideal, drought-resistant accents in the garden.

3. Whimsy: from bedsprings and iron dragonflies to oversized granite acorns surrounded by tiny oak seedlings, gardeners are reaching out to tickle our funny bones.

4. Container "vignettes": arrangements of pots of all sizes and shapes, filled with all manner of plants, especially in small space gardens where pots and plants could be moved or changed with the seasons.

5. Moss: growing on rooftops and pathways, cushiony-soft mosses greeted us over front doorways, over the rooftops, and along brick or stone paths.



6. Art: From South Street mosaics to twig sculptures, art expressed the gardener's soul. Nowhere was it more transforming than at the Village of Arts and Humanity in one of Philadelphia's poorest neighbourhoods.



7. Grasses: an ideal time of the year, grasses put on a show for us in the public gardens of Longwood.



8. Coleus: still hot, I fell in love with two that were new to me - 'Flirting Skirts' and a "mystery" variety that I'll spend all winter trying to identify and track down!


9. Persian Sheild Strobilanthes dyeranus: a great foliage plant for containers, this tropical shrub from Burma has purple leaves brushed with an iridescent silver. It was in almost every container planting I saw.



10. Begonia grandis: a tender perennial that most Philadelphia gardeners consider a weed, I can't wait to grow it in the shade of the back garden instead of the ubiquitous impatiens.

Now, my dilemma is how to incorporate all of these ideas into my small city garden. Oh well, looks like we'll have to dig up more lawn . . .