Columbia Star

1963        Celebrating 60 Years      2023

Colorful Combinations, Compositions, and Companions

Stopping to smell the flowers



 

 

Eleven years ago, Monika Tschoche started an early spring and summer sun-kissed front yard garden for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds using colorful flowers to lure and light the way to her Knollwood residence. The sequential flower show starts with spring bulbs but as temperature and humidity increase heat-tolerant long-blooming perennials and annuals share the spotlight.

The plant palette includes a medley of colorful clustered compositions of tall agapanthus, larkspur, coneflower, daylily, and rudbeckia near the curbside mailbox; gomphrena, petunia, snapdragon, and zinnia surround a pair of statuary rabbits; dwarf agapanthus and cleome are happy companions along a path; trailing calibrachoa and bright gerbera daisy thrive in front of azaleas at the curb.

Flowers are in border beds and containers. Monika finds containers a “good way to get color for different seasons in places flowers don’t grow.” Container plants are easy to replace with fresh plants like geranium, calibrachoa, verbena, and lavender. The fall-blooming leopard plant, Farfugium japonicum, aka tractor seat plant, occupies several beds.

Monika in the midst of her flower garden.

Monika in the midst of her flower garden.

A native oakleaf hydrangea, H. quercifolia, covered with showy pyramidal panicles of creamy white blooms reached a height and width of 6-8’ to form a privacy hedge. Non-native lacecap and mophead hydrangeas punctuate the property. One beautiful blue mophead cultivar ‘Dooley’ was discovered and introduced by horticulturist Michael Dirr and named to honor retired Georgia football coach Vince Dooley.

How does the garden achieve its purpose of attracting bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds during their season of fervent feeding and procreation, especially since pollinators don’t “see” flowers the same way humans do? Flower color, size, shape, odor, and bloom time are a set of cues used to attract pollinators. Additionally, many flowers contain ultraviolet light (UV ) nectar guides on petals to direct insects to the nectar sources. Humans don’t see the UV spectrum.

Eye- catching bedding plant Blackeyed Susan ‘Autumn Forest’

Eye- catching bedding plant Blackeyed Susan ‘Autumn Forest’

The cues a particular plant displays suggest which animals are likely to visit. For example, red flowers (geranium) attract hummingbirds, and blue flowers ( agapanthus, stokesia and larkspur) attract native and honey bees that see the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. While butterflies use the visible spectrum for color vision as humans do, their compound eyes are very sensitive to ultraviolet violet, blue, green, and red wavelengths. Behaviorally, butterflies prefer plants with pink (petunia, cleome), red (calibrachoa, zinnia), purple ( coneflower), yellow (Rudbeckia hirta), or orange ( Rudbeckia ‘Autumn frost’, daylily) flowers. They visit gardens with large masses of a single flower color or closely related colors, rather than gardens with numerous mixed colors.

Monika works daily to maintain the garden and has appreciated “when mother nature gives us a good shower.” She saves seeds to offset the cost of new plants and welcomes annuals that reseed, bulbs that multiply, and perennials that return from the roots.

Agapanthus is a South African native plant with show-stopping rounded clusters of tubular flowers. It likes a southern exposure with a generous serving of compost each spring.

Agapanthus is a South African native plant with show-stopping rounded clusters of tubular flowers. It likes a southern exposure with a generous serving of compost each spring.

Her flower garden yields lots of attention and smiles from neighbors, the mailman, and passersby. She believes “Love grows in a garden and can make the world smile. When the world smiles, there is no better place to be than in your garden.”

Flowers in Ultraviolet
www.naturfotograf.com/UV_flowers_list.html#top/

The rabbit’s flower garden

The rabbit’s flower garden

Native oakleaf hydrangea, H. quercifolia is covered with showy pyramidal panicles of creamy white blooms. Leaves turn red in fall.

Native oakleaf hydrangea, H. quercifolia is covered with showy pyramidal panicles of creamy white blooms. Leaves turn red in fall.

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