I met cardinal lobelia in Hillsdale, New York one August at least forty years ago. Turning a corner after walking up a dirt path to visit a neighbor, I was startled to see a field of scarlet flowers where a pond had quietly sat in April. It was one of the most beautiful Meadows I have ever seen.

 Cardinal lobelia, or cardinal flower as it is sometimes called, is Lobelia cardinalis in Latin. As you might have guessed, it likes its feet wet.  In the Adirondacks, upstate New York’s park, where I usually spend August, it blooms in groups of two or three plants along river and stream banks. I have never again seen more than a few plants together. Short lived, it reseeds readily where it is happy.  I planted a few along the side of our lake cottage and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will spread with abandon.

Even the parking lot has a garden.

Window boxes of flowers adorn many store fronts.

This house had a meadow instead of a front lawn.

The most popular hotels have gardens.

A walkway is lined with flowers.

Out with the lawn, in with flowers!

A garden in front of a restaurant.

I was lucky enough to be in town for the yearly garden tour hosted by PAAM, Provincetown Art Association and Museum. On the tour I met several guests that have visited year after year. One group said they attended many different garden tours in many different cities but they had come here for fifteen years straight and it was the best. I returned home with lots of newly inspired ideas. Here are some of pictures I took at the tour.

Front yards are ever so much more interesting when planted with flowers.

Ornamental grasses and flowers mingle in this front yard.

A flower lined path makes the house more inviting.

Even narrow front yards can be plated with flowers.

What an inviting door.

A patch of ornament grass is right at home by this front door.

I loved all of the wild and wacky planters as well as the way many of the planters were used for beauty and privacy.

These sculptures work well as planters, making the garden more intersting.

These beautiful planters add privacy to the terrace.

A great way to turn simple terracotta pots into sculpture.

Humor is always welcome in a garden. This tuba has a second life.

Hillside terraced gardens come in all sizes and shapes. They can be casual or formal.

A meadow on a hillside.

A formal arrangement of shrubs and flowers on a terraced hillside.

Rosa 'Dortman" climbs the ivy by the kitchen door.

Many times, over the years when I passed a bare trellis, an empty pillar, a bald wall, an unattractive fence, I fancy I heard them crying out to me. The lament was always the same: “If only someone would adorn me with roses.” The romance of climbing roses should not be underestimated.

If a climbing red rose hadn’t come with our house, I might not have fallen so hopelessly in love with them. Once I realized the rose was using ivy as its trellis, hooking its thorns into the ivy as it grew, and it required little care, there was no stopping me. Now roses climb our doorways, arbors, porches, gazebos, fences, walls and even the basketball court. The roses also climb up other plants—climbing hydrangea, trees, and, of course, ivy. Over the last 20 years, I’ve added a couple dozen roses.

The impact of climbers, whether short or tall, is that they put the finishing touches on a garden. Plus, the garden appears larger when flowers bloom vertically. And the only drawback to climbing roses is their bare legs; I use their woody-stemmed canes as living supports for loose-limbed, delicate vines such as clematis, love-in-a-puff and sweet peas or I plant perennials or shrubs in front of them. Rose love shade on their roots and sun on their flowers.

Clematis climb the fence and the arms of the shrub roses.

Most climbing roses sprawl, arch and creep upward, stretching their awkward canes. Some grow to 30 feet and beyond, while others grow only 8 to 12 feet tall. For the first few years, I rarely prune until they cover the area I have allotted to them. If they grow up and out of reach—up a tree for instance—I wish them well and wait for the tree to be alive with flowers. Shorter climbers I prune to shape the canes into a classic fan shape against a wall, or along a fence or trellis. With arched branches, more of the cane is exposed to the sun encouraging flowers to form at the node.

My approach to planting climbers is the more the merrier. They add so much to a garden—fragrance, color, beauty and branches for birds to nest.

Once blooming roses climb the basketball backboard.

Rosa 'Mme gregoire Staechelin"'

Often, if I don’t recognize a seedling, I don’t pull it. It’s a gamble to let it grow; yet I often get lucky. (It’s my idea of living dangerously.) Of course, I first check to see if the mystery seedling is part of a group found in only one part of the garden. If it is, the probability is high that the mother plant is nearby. Morning glories are one example of a plant that drops its seeds at its feet. They would, if they could, take over the earth. Besides their glorious good looks, I grow them so curious children can pinch their puffed buds and hear them pop. Each flower blooms for only a day before it literally goes to seed. ‘Heavenly Blue’, a hybrid, drops hundreds of seeds over the course of its 3- to 4-month bloom by my estimation. But the seedling don’t look like their ma. Their small purple flowers are not much to look at. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t wipe out the entire population with one swipe because the seeds don’t germinate all at once. They keep coming all summer and fall with even more showing up the following spring. Some always escape my hoe and bloom. Because I am so fond of the mother I tolerate the kids. You know how it goes.

In a garden, new seedling appear daily. Some are showy: The red leaves of amaranth give it away. Some are gawky: A tulip tree seedling has tulip-shaped leaves too big for its britches. Some are ferny: Nigella, a miniature of its mother, is all a flutter in a light breeze. And some are instantly identifiable: Lupine, for example, has its foliage arranged in tight whorls.  Once I learned to recognize my favorites, I let them be or scoop them up and move them to a better spot. Extras are always welcome to neighbors and Friends. Here are a few of my favorite pictured below:

morning glory seedlings

The troubling bindweed.

lungwort (Pulmoniaria)

Hellebore

wood geranium

The prolific weed, marsh marigold.

a sweetpea seedling

The biannual clary sage's seedling.

An annual poppy seedling

A lupine seedling

a nasturtum

Winter can certainly wreck havoc on a garden, especially an edible landscape. However, the best-designed gardens always have interesting bones that are revealed in winter. A perfect example is the new 12-acre Heartland Harvest Garden, an expansion of Powell Gardens, located in Kingsville, MO about thirty miles east of Kansas City. I recently visited the garden on a cold, icy day, and even without snow cover it was beautiful. The bones of the garden were exposed, laid out in geometric patterns with arbors and trellises that added to its winter interest. It is a young garden, only a few years old and as the trees, shrubs and vines mature it will a garden to visit again and again. There is much to learn from its orchard, vineyard, and vegetable gardens.

From atop the silo, next to the Missouri barn interpretive resource center, the Quilt Garden’s patterns are still visible. Thankfully the foliage was left to ripen over the winter months making it a garden for all seasons. Each of four three-quarter acre squares are planted in traditional “Old Missouri” and Kansas Star” quilt patterns.

An apple sculpture sits at the entrance to the garden.

The gates by the vineyard are decorated with grape leaves.

The pruners perched on the post of the vineyard gate is a humorous touch.

The 45-foot silo is a viewing tower for visitors to see the garden.

This year’s theme at the show was “Passport to the World” and it featured gardens from India, Brasil, China,the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and the United States. Here are some of my pictures from the show.

A floral rug was a hit at the India garden.

Quite rightly, the Netherlands showed a spring bulb garden in all its beauty.

The Singapore garden was wall to wall orchids.

At the African garden a metal giraffe was decorated with glass bottles of orchids.

Brazil displayed a lush jungle with floral flamingos.

The China exhibit showcased tree peony in full bloom.

The abundance and the beauty of the wildflowers in mid summer made our drive up into the mountains outside of Aspen a pleasure.  We saw red poppies, blue lupine, white daisies, and lots of thistles.

The views from the mountain side were glorious.

This blue flower was blooming everywhere but I never did get its name.

Our native blue lupines are a favorite of mine.

Red poppies and white daisies blooming together.