Spring Gardens

By Elvin McDonald

2005

A curious trait common to gardeners is that no matter how well we’ve done in one season, we always hope to do better the next. The Terrace Hill Garden Committee members and staff are no different. In winter while snow and ice blanket the garden, we lie low by the fire, plotting our plans for the coming season.

In an effort to add more flowers for the spring, we have planted more daffodils—which the deer dont eat—and ornamental onions in the back garden. Thanks to a gift from the Netherlands Flowerbulb, we will have a collection of different daffodils belonging to the distinct class known as Jonquilla, which are treasured for their perfume. These are rooting over winter in pots so that as early as possible in the spring they can be transferred to the urns near the house.

With our eyes on the National Governors’ Conference that will be held here in July, the Terrace Hill Garden Committee will undertake a landscaping project this spring to beautify an area along the main driveway northeast of the house. Two mounds of granite boulders in this spot, perhaps the remnants of a rock garden, flank the former location of a staircase that led from the driveway to Terrace Road below. The staircase was removed long ago, and the gap in the retaining wall along Terrace Road was bricked up. New plantings among the stones will offer subtle, seasonal flowers; cleanly variegated leaves; and many shades of green. Shrubs will frame the rock garden area on both sides and also serve as a backdrop. Herbaceous perennials and groundcovers with a variety of textures and plant forms will be tucked among the granite boulders. Many of the perennials will be evergreen or nearly so, keeping a hint of green in the garden through the winter months. In the opening between the rock piles, a sweep of liriope will suggest a grassy pathway—a reference to the past.

Elsewhere on the grounds, the annual beds will again be filled with bold-foliaged tropical plants that evoke the spirit of Victorian gardens: coleus, elephant ears, cannas, begonias and castor beans, among others.

The urns and other containers will once more be home to specimen plants with beautiful foliage: grasses and grasslike sedges, cordylines, and New Zealand flax; succulents uniquely shaped and colored that don’t require deadheading or excessive watering; and plants having fragrant leaves, such as lavender, rosemary and scented geraniums.

____
Elvin McDonald is garden editor of Better Homes and Gardens and has been named chairman of the Des Moines Flower Show, to be held April 7 9, 2006, at Hy-Vee Hall in the Events Center.

‹ Back