I know if the fall, people put out ornamental cabbages. Something like that might work.

Jen

I don't have a direct answer to your question...but I have been taking some notes on how to improve the early spring appearance of my garden. There is just something disappointing about my garden looking like bare dirt and dead sticks on a warm spring day. This is especially true now that I have cut back plants such as the grasses and liriope.

I am not a huge bulb fan, but I do understand the impact that they have during the early spring. I plan to add more...not a ton...probably 100-200, to my garden over the next few years.

I will also create dedicated spot to plant annuals for the summer and pansies in the fall. I watch the ones that they plant around my office bounce back to life in the spring. I hate "wasting" money on pansies but if I can get two seasons of color out of them then I think it will be worth purchasing a flat or two. Maybe I can try to grow pansies from seed.

I have also been keeping an eye on gardens to assess the balance of winter versus summer interest. Some gardens that are heavy on evergreens look great during the winter but pretty boring during the summer. Adding hardscape elements can add year round interest...I especially like stacked stone walls.

- Brent

How about ivy or liriope? Creeping jenny is up and green already. Many varieties of the herb rosemary are semihardy and it has pretty foliage.

brent, just a warning - most of those pansies that appear to spring back to life in the spring are new plants that the landscaper just put in. Occasionally, in a very mild winter, the pansies will pull through, but usually they look so shabby that fresh ones go in around March.

That's generally true about the pansies being rotated in, but this year the pansies I planted last fall in a small raised bed under a maple w/ terrible soil have revived w/ a vengeance & look much better than when they were first planted. I made a note of the variety, because even though I almost always go for blues, this color mix was nice for a change-Skyline Copperfield-peaches, yellows, white, bronze.

I had a gentleman come in last week & bought 10 flats of 4" pansies (180 plants) that he was planting himself. He had to make 2 trips, becuse he was driving a tiny red Miata, he said he was 81 years old & his yard, when planted, stops traffic-I can believe it!

Jen-I have always wanted to put in ornamental cabbage but usually get so caught up in late winter activities with the kids I barely get any pansies in before it's too warm. :-) I didn't see a single cabbage at any of the nurseries I went to this weekend. Maybe it's too late? Or they just don't carry them?

Watergal-I love varigated(sp?) liriope and am on the lookout for some. I almost always install it at some point at each place I live. :-) ( I laugh out loud still to think my friend and I used to call it "Lear-e-ope." We
were such idiots. I have learned since then to ask how to pronounce things. LOL. So embarrassing!)

Brent-I checked out your pictures and you have inspired me to actually try winter sowing this winter instead of just wistfully reading about it on the forum. I love your new home and would love to have that yard! I am sure whatever changes you make to the landscape are going to be fabulous! I can see what you are saying by watching how your pictures have progressed...getting more thoughtful as to how the beds should be filled etc...I'm still not in a home I want to live in for more than a year or two (we moved to Maryland on short notice...not the house of my dreams at all!) so I won't be putting any bulbs in but someday...

Thanks all!

It seems the garden centers only carry ornamental cabbage in the fall, not the spring. I guess it would bolt too fast when the weather warms in the spring?

thistle - were they Icicle pansies? I've seen ads for them, that they guarantee they will return in the spring or your money back. But I do mine in containers and they don't guarantee container use. :( The severe cold and ice storms we had here in Maryland in February did a real number on all the outdoor pansies I saw. I'm amazed yours survived!!

Lots2learn - I like variegated liriope too. I like variegated ANYTHING, actually! Try Meadows Farms a little later in the season - they always have tons of liriope, but the variegated sells out fast, so check back often. I bought mine at Valley View Farms in Cockeysville, MD last summer. It was really pretty, looks like spider plants. It's just starting to re-emerge - I hope they all survived the winter.

Actually, I didn't realize there were so many different varieties of pansies until I was trying to remember what they were. I had had a few left over that I popped in a pot in the back w/ some other leftovers-the rue is resprouting & the pansy-deep bronze, is blooming! There's a good picture of this variety on the saunders brothers website -http://www.saundersbrothers.com/Catalog/pansies_fall_annuals.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: Saunders Brothers

I have never grown pansies...it is just so hard to spend money on annuals in the fall. I have been watching the pansies that they put in place around my office for the past two winters. In late winter they look near dead and a tad ugly but once warmer temps set in they put out new growth. At some point the landscape crew comes around and trims off the brown foliage and mulches. There is one bed that was piled with a bunch of snow where there are just a few scraggily survivors, but there are several beds of pansies that look very nice.

Once the warm weather sets in for good the landscape crews will come in with thousands of annuals in 4" pots and rip out the pansies. I am thinking that I probably cannot swing $4,000 per year on annuals for my home!! I am wintersowing 5 or 6 different annuals that I hope will add some extra color to my gardens this summer...my wife gets all excited by landscapes that are stuffed full of annuals...I am more of a foliage guy.

- Brent

Oh, but how can you not love pansies? They're just such hard-working, gorgeous little plants & they look good when nothing else does-sort of like hellebores, only hellbores last longer & are alot more expensive.

You could spend $10-12/flat, if you get small ones, 4 packs, & have something that will grow for 9 months-I don't deadhead or trim, although I'm sure they'd look better if I did. You should definitely try wintersowing pansies.

As far as winter interest goes, things that have been evergreen (or almost) for me here are creeping jenny, thyme, lambs ears, heuchera, rohdea, hellebores... & liriope, I don't think you can kill that stuff. Now that it's warming up (aside from our little cold spell), things that are emerging are geraniums, lilies, eucomis, liatris, flax, allium, nepeta, daylilies, roses, irises, clematis (finally!), saxifrage, & even some purple fennel-that's why this is my favorite time of the year!

My liriope came back - I found the tag - it's called Silver Dragon. See photo link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1047546}}

I also have 5 silver dragon liriope, planted in front of some irises my neighbor 'gifted' me with. But the POs of this house, who did not seem to have a green thumb, left little clumps of liriope all over the place, northside, under maples, in the dark, & they're all still growing-one has had a hose reel over it for the last year, & it's still growing-I have great admiration for liriope!

Brent - give pansies another thought. Pansies planted in the fall will sometimes last through December, then return in March and hang around until June. Professional landscapers pull them out way too early in order to get the summer plants going.

Another great filler is lettuce! I put them in my containers with pansies, ranunculus, snaps, etc. Not only do they look good, but I can get a little salad when they get too big.

Regarding the panies, I have found that the violas tend to overwinter much better than the larger flowered pansies. Plus they reseed so I get more bang for the buck.

thistle - too weird - I have 5 Silver Dragon liriope, planted in front of some awesome irises my next door neighbor gave me!! Do great minds think alike or what??!!

Oh, definitely!-what I really envy are your gorgeous water gardens. Last year, I had a plastic popup pond, & stuck my phragmepediums in it. This year, I have a 12" high, 25" wide glazed Chinese bowl (so, still not very big)-I just picked up my first Louisiana iris-Black Gamecock, do you think this would be ok submerged in water? I do have a small pump.

What I really want is a pond, but I haven't talked my DH into it yet. As it is, he returns from a deployment this weekend, & there are a WHOLE lot more plants in the yard, taking away space from his beloved lawn...

Oh...I forgot to mention one plant that I have been really starting to enjoy...Iberis sempervirens (Perennial Candytuft). I started a bunch of plants from seed a couple years ago. They have been flowering nicely for a couple weeks. I do also enjoy how daylilies emerge early in the season with attractive foliage.

- Brent

thistle, stick to your guns and get that pond! I had to wait until dh's knees and ankles started to get arthritic, then suddenly he was a whole lot more agreeable to me taking over the lawn so he had less to mow! :) I've got one more pond in the planning stages, but I haven't quite decided on style and construction materials yet. At this point, I'm getting older and thinking towards ease of construction and maintenance!

I've never grown La. iris, I hope to try one soon, but I think it would be OK in the water, but not very deep. Here's a link to a company with growing instructions.

Here is a link that might be useful: growing instructions

Thanks, I picked this one, because it's in a 1 gallon container, practically splitting the sides. I didn't realize the phrags would do so well in the water, either, I left them out until it got really cold, Oct., I think, then brought them in & they haven't gotten nearly as much water, but most of them look good.

Today, I got a bargain cobalt glazed pot (slight crack in the glaze), that I'll put one of the Japanese maples in,2 2.5 qt. containers that were a bargain, I thought (not at my place), an 'Ayesha' hydrangea for $6 & an Acorus gramineus 'Ogon' for $7 (see, I need that pond!), some moisture control potting soil for some self-watering hanging baskets that I'm going to plant w/ begonia cuttings, somebody stop me please, I have too much stuff going on!

I did pansies last fall and they rewarded me by coming back in force this spring to decorate the feet of the daffodils and hyacinths.

I usually don't do fall plantings since the summer annuals are still kicking and I'm so busy. I'm kinda glad I did this last year though since the show is so lovely this spring.

Last spring I had snapdragons planted early in boxes and they put on a show into June, then I inter planted them with begonias thinking they would die back only to have them hang in pretty doggedly until fall when they put on a second show when the begonias were giving up at first frost. They kept going until the first truly harsh weather finally showed up and that was December.

I think I'll plant them again this year. Any annual that puts on an encore is a good deal in my book!

I was just watching A Gardener's Diary on HGTV. They mentioned Viola "Freckles" as a cold hardy plant. It's very pretty, too.