Make your outdoor living space dreams a reality and deck out your front yard with all of the best plants inspired by gardens in the Columbus area.
Frustrated that your flowers only bloom for a few weeks? Franklin County Master Gardener Volunteer Steve Herminghausen has years of experience with planting and maintaining gardens, and says you don’t need to settle for only a couple weeks of bloom time.
Steve’s Top Tips
To have a successful continuous garden, Herminghausen says, you need to stagger the bloom times of your plants. For example, you can start some early blooming plants in the winter, such as winter Hellebores, also known as Lenten Rose.
“It’s really a matter of succession,” Herminghausen says.
He presents tulips as a prime example: Some bloom in March, some in April and some in May.
“If you can pick the right varieties that bloom at different times, it appears that your tulips are kind of just continuing on for a month or so,” Herminghausen says.
He also suggests picking a color you like and finding plants with different bloom times in that color family. That way, they bloom in succession, making your garden last much longer. For example, if you prefer blue, you can plant geraniums to bloom in May, Larkspur to bloom in June and Lobelia siphilitica, also known as Great Blue abelia, to bloom in late June, July and August.
Herminghausen advises paying attention to what types of plants you put together. Some plants can be aggressive and may take over less aggressive plants that are nearby.
He says a lot of people will plant a “thug garden” to utilize more aggressive plants, such as common milkweed and black-eyed Susan, that are good plants, but would crowd out other things in the rest of the garden.
Herminghausen suggests going on neighborhood garden tours to see what plants and techniques have succeeded. Most of the time, other gardeners are willing to share the plants they’ve been successful with.
“Find other people whose gardens you like and talk to them and find out how they’ve succeeded,” he says. “And that might be by joining in or going to a garden club meeting or going to some other organization that is promoting gardening.”
Feeling stuck creatively on what to plant in your garden? Get out of that rut and out into your community, and take inspiration from these local gardens.
- German Village Haus und Garten Tour: Be transported to another world at the Annual Haus und Garten Tour. This event isn’t until the end of June, but make sure to get your tickets now to enjoy a day-long celebration of renowned designs, enchanting gardens and award-winning restorations.
- Rooftop Garden Tours: Students and Ohio State fanatics can visit the historic Lazarus Building on campus to feed their garden inspiration. Free tours are available May through October, with a bonus rooftop view of Columbus included.
- Short North Tour of Homes & Gardens: As with the German Village tour, spectators will be able to ooh and ahh over remarkable homes and gardens in the Short North area on Sept. 15.
- Bexley Women’s Club Annual House & Garden Tour: The annual Bexley Women’s Club tour, scheduled for June 2, not only shows off Bexley homes and history, but is the main fundraiser for the Bexley Women’s Club Scholarships.
Ava Huelskamp is a contributing writer at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
