If there is a garden Mecca, I’m sure it is in Provincetown, MA. Located at the tip of Cape Cod, P’town is best known for it’s National seashore, which covers two-thirds of the town’s land area. Yet, once you leave the seashore there are gardens everywhere, in front of stores, houses and restaurants. Flowers dominate front yards, not lawns. Each garden is unique, no cookie cutter designs, no copying of the neighbors. Each garden reflects the owners’ personality, likes and dislikes. Consequently, walking around town is a joy.  Take a look at the pictures below:

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.

There are many clever uses for climbers. I inherited a red rose, the name of which I’ve never discovered. It’s feet are firmly planted at the back of a mixed border, taking up practically no space. The rose blooms once in June high up above a window on a wall covered with ivy. The dark red practically jumps off the wall in contrast to the dark green, shiny background of dense ivy. As the flower petals fall, the vine recedes into the background, and if it has any disease, black spot or mildew most likely among them, I don’t know about it because the ivy acts as camouflage. And what would it matter, as the ivy and the rose have a happy marriage, their lives intertwined and compatible for more than forty years.

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"'