Garden Design

Today we’re visiting with Tina Bemis in Spencer, Massachusetts.

front yard garden bed with red and yellow plantsThis is the front of my house: the yellow, orange, and red garden. It has been in for seven years, but I doubled the size of it last year. I took this picture last summer. I sprung for a palm tree (at the far right of the photo) here in New England, just because. I put the pink flamingos in as a joke. While I like a little garden whimsy, these aren’t my normal style. I was going to remove them after I took a few pictures, but my friends begged me to keep them up: they made them smile in an otherwise dreadful year.

A red wheel barrow sitting in a garden bed full of flowersThis winter, my brother gave me my late mother’s red wheelbarrow that I had given her 30 years ago. He had repaired and painted it, but it was just sitting in the basement. I told him I had the perfect spot to display it in. Here it is this spring amid the orange tulips and yellow daffodils.

garden bed with lots of red and yellowThis photo is of the front garden later in the spring. The perennials are filling in nicely. The daffodils and tulips are past, but I have underplanted orange and salmon impatiens around the bulbs so their foliage may wither unnoticed.

Tall purple flowers growing out of a garden bedI planted about 500 bulbs last fall: Allium (ornamental onions, Zones 5–9) and grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum, Zones 3–9) in the blue and yellow garden on the side of my house, and daffodils and tulips in the orange, red, and yellow garden in the front of my house. Here are the alliums showing off.

clusters of purple flowers growing out of a mass of bright yellow foliageGrape hyacinths glow against the backdrop of yellow Sedum ‘Angelina’ (Zones 5–8).

lots of plants growing on and below a raised deckThis is the back of my house last year. Herbs and veggies are on the deck, with more veggies in the red hardscape veggie garden.

container with yellow and black flowersLastly, here are a few of my container creations. The first one features ‘Midnight Gold’ petunias (Petunia ‘Midnight Gold’, annual).

container with red and orange flowersThis container creation is my Witch Cauldron Over the Fire.

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