Goshen Garden Design

09/19/2023

Some interesting morning light about a week ago.

09/04/2023

Some late summer garden photos

07/20/2023

Plants that are Fruitful and Multiply

In starting a large mixed border it can be helpful and thrilling to plant perennials that multiply easily, thereby filling in your space at lower cost. Examples of this would be:

Species Columbine
Crocosmia
Knautia
Foxglove
Bee Balm
Phlox
St. John's Wort
Plume Poppy
Queen of the Prairie (see photo below)
Verbascum "16 Candles"

These plants all have a lot of visual merit in addition to procreating easily. However, it's worth thinking about how much time you want to spend removing plants as eventually these can spread too much and interfere with your design. The good news is most perennials are relatively easy to pull out (in the above list I would only say that phlox, verbascum, and plume poppy are difficult). It's fun to give them to friends, use them for starting new beds, and reshaping your border. I have a theory that weeding and removing unwanted perennials has the added advantage of putting you in closer touch with your garden and plants, thereby enhancing your connection to your garden. And allowing plants to spread can give your garden a spontaneous quality, a different look each year, and create large dramatic swaths of plants and flowers.

Some plants are really invasive and are best avoided unless you love them. Some of these would be:

Loosestrife
Ferns
Japanese Knotweed (yes, some people plant this)
Wild Purple Violets

I have some plant that looks like Queen Anne's Lace that I spend way too much time keeping out of my perennial beds. And I'm at war with violets.

The Missouri Botanical Garden has descriptions of most plants and includes whether they're invasive or not. So it's a good resource:

http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/plantfinder/plantfindersearch.aspx

02/22/2023

Some miscellaneous photos. Getting excited for next season.

02/22/2023

Structural Plant #3 - Hydrangea Paniculata

A hardy hydrangea, there are smallish ones to fit in a mixed border. I grow "Little Lime" and "Vanilla Strawberry" (picture below is of Vanilla Strawberry which is to the far left). Pound for pound hydrangeas might be the best garden flowers there are. They're interesting from the moment they send out new shoots till you pick the dried flowers in winter. Vanilla Strawberry's shoots are red and elegant looking. The leaves are firm and definitively shaped. And of course, the flowers! I don't even have to tell you about the flowers.

Paniculatas have conically shaped flowers that often change colors. Vanilla strawberry goes from white to pink to rust. Little lime from green to white (or maybe it's vice versa -- I don't remember. Either way, it's great!) Dried hydrangea flowers are a staple as well and can last for years.

The photo below should give you a good idea of the structure a hydrangea can provide. It's a nice backdrop and contrast to the relatively structureless red bee balm, purple eryngium, and yellow coreopsis. At the right of the picture is the foliage of Helianthus Salicifolius, a perennial sunflower that provides interesting structure as well with it's willowy foliage (like papyrus). This perennial needs to be planted en masse.

02/21/2023

Structural Plant #2 - Silphium Mohri

A mid to late summer bloomer with yellow-cream colored flowers providing 2-3 months of flowering. Similar to a sunflower, it has a nice branching structure and gives some perennial flowers in August/September/October when perennials are scarce. Prior to flowering, the buds also provide interest. In the picture below, it sits behind a beautyberry shrub. Easy to raise from seed.

01/29/2023

Structural Plant #1 - Anchusa Azurea

I grew this plant for the first time last spring and summer after planting seeds for it the previous late summer directly in the ground. Boy was I happy with it!

Whenever people would tour my garden, they would always say (in a good way) "What is that plant?!"

First off, you can see the classic vaselike structure it provides. Second, it flowered for at least 2 months starting in late Spring. Third, it provided brilliant blue flowers coupled with irridescent lilac colored flowers. It often had a silverish tinge to it. Fourth, while small, the flowers were so plentiful they filled up space and provided a rare blue contrast to other flowers like the yellow peony in the picture.

After a while, the plant did flop, so I cut it to the ground and it provided some fresh foliage. As I've never grown the plant before I'm not sure if it will come back this year. It seems to be thought of as a biennial, so we'll see. Sometimes when biennials are cut to the ground after flowering they can act more perennial in nature. I've certainly found this to be true of hollyhocks. Even so, if anchusa azurea isn't perennial I think it's still worth growing on a biennial basis.

04/26/2022

03/26/2022

Various photos of my different gardens

03/23/2022

Welcome to Goshen Garden Design, located in Goshen, MA and serving homeowners throughout the Western Massachusetts region.

My name is Marc Fromm, and the pictures you see in the next post down are of my garden in Goshen, which I have been designing and redesigning for 14 years. If you like what you see, please consider hiring me to design a garden for you.

I have been studying garden design for many years by reading books, visiting gardens all over the world, growing plants from seed, talking about gardening and design with other gardeners, attending seminars, and most of all, working on my own garden. In some of the posts that follow, I will discuss aspects of design and offer pictures to demonstrate certain concepts.

03/23/2022

So you want a garden - where do you start?

Chances are you’re looking for beauty, tranquility, excitement, cut flowers, a place to relax or entertain, or some combination of these things. Maybe you have some experience with gardening or maybe you don’t.

Why not start with making a list of your favorite plants? Are you a rose person? Do you love tulips? Dahlias? Marigolds? It really doesn’t matter. It’s your garden and you should choose the plants you want and love and the garden can and should be designed around those plants.

Many of us associate plants with family members. My grandmother loved forget-me-nots and my mother grew peonies and raspberries. My grandfather swore by Northern Spy apples. I feel a connection to them through these same plants that I grow. Any garden can be designed around the plants that mean the most to you and that thrill you the most.

Of course, if you're not sure about what you like, I'm happy to suggest some plants!