I’ve got planting on the brain.  My planting design boot camp is currently enrolling for March 1st, 2019, and this week I start a new gig talking about plants live on nationwide TV. Even though it is literally snowing right now my brain is all plants, plants, plants!

Check out this image by photographer Arielle Vey.  I’m seriously considering buying it to hang in my office – I just love the colors and contrast of blowsy flowers with the alien shapes of the cactus paddles.

I’ve always loved translating art and images and ideas that appeal to me into planting and garden design ideas.  Usually I have to play with abstracting the inspiration into actual garden design ideas but this one is obviously completely literal.

As I deconstruct it into a planting plan – I have to eliminate a few things because they just won’t work where I live (good-bye beautiful bougainvillea). But the blue and pink also reminds me of a plant combo that I love – Picea ‘Montgomery’ + Peony ‘Sarah Bernhardt’.

I wonder if I can grow the jasmine through the Blue Spruce instead of propping it up with something else?  And also, I wonder if I can even grow jasmine at all?  I’ve never tried Jasminum nudiflorum – the only cold hardy jasmine I know of.  I’ve read that it might need protection in zone 5 (and I am marginally zone 5-6).

I grew ranunculus in my very first garden in Denver with some success and I’ve never done it again. I am thinking it would be fun to come full circle and plant them out again, 20+ years later.  This time, I’ll plant them in randomly spaced clumps that are closer together (yes, back then, I did the single straight line, evenly spaced, type of bulb planting that looks really silly in my mind).

I rarely see Opuntia in gardens in New England, but there are quite a few varieties that are fully hardy here and I think that they are a missed opportunity to get some different texture in a planting scheme.  I suspect this might be a great option for the areas of my garden where it is too much of a PITB to drag a hose.

A  few soft pink roses and my beloved peonies and poppies should keep it interesting  at least though-out the spring and early-mid summer seasons.

1. Icelandic poppy, 2. jasmine, 3. Cactus, 4. Pink Persian buttercups, 5. ranunculus, 6. Dirty Poppy, 7. Jasmine, 8. Blue Spruce, 9. Peach rose, 10. Untitled, 11. 2008-CarlsbadCavernsNP-54, 12. poppy stages

The mix of flowers and color that were put together for the inspiration shot was created by florist Layered Vintage.

Image by Arielle Vey