​As spring is fast approaching, I am busy planning away and gearing up for another growing season. Before it gets too late, I want to take one last look back at this past winter. It was a quiet winter with many travels to visit friends and celebrations where plenty of imbibing of good food and adult beverages was going on. In January, I attended the annual Digging In: Gathering for Professional Container Garden Designers. This year the yearly conference was held in Miami, Florida. I needed no other excuse to travel from Michigan to south Florida in the middle of winter, but this year’s gathering coincided with Tropical Plant International Expo in Fort Lauderdale. A bonus, indeed! Please read on for photos from my trip. Many of my summer and indoor installations this year will take inspiration from this trip!

Nursery Tour: Princeton, Florida
This area of Florida reminded me of home! Nursery after plant nursery, fields of green around every corner. The only difference is I’m looking at fields of tropical plants instead of ornamental shrubs and perennials.


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​Not every day you see a forest of Fiddle Leaf Fig! Can you believe they grow these out in full sun? They will move to a shady greenhouse to “harden it off” before shipping up north where it will most likely live the rest of it’s life indoors.

If you own a houseplant, it probably came from Costa Farms. They own almost every tropical plant nursery in south Florida. We enjoyed the rare opportunity to view Costa Farms trial gardens. We got a first-hand look at new plants before they have hit the market. Like this baby:

This is a Salvia! What?

Bullis Bromeliads is the leading grower of Bromeliads in the United States. Recently, through the use of tissue culture, hundreds of new varieties of Bromeliad are available to designers and homeowners. I’ve always been scared to plant these guys, as their water requirements are so unique. I was let in on a couple secrets on how to take care of these guys: Don’t plant them in your containers! Keep the Bromeliad in its plastic pot from the nursery and set the pot in your planter among your other container plantings. Then you can water the Bromeliad only when it needs it, which is hardly ever. You can fill the leaves up with water as long as the Bromeliad is located in sun(morning sun preferably). But, do not allow the water to remain on leaves when grown in shade… it’ll rot

Quite the display garden at Bullis including a huge koi pond!
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TPIE: Tropical Plant International Expo
This place was huge! I met a lot of new pottery vendors here and can’t wait to give them a try. I also got a lot of inspiration from the fun displays. The entire room smelled like leaf shine! Houseplants are back in style with modern planters and displays being the biggest trend this season.
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No shortage of selfie opportunities, but I guess I wasn’t in a selfie mood.
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South Beach:
Miami has no shortage of green space to explore, to the delight of this northerner.
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I had no idea when I entered the Miami Botanic Gardens that I was in for my first time ever sighting of a Rainbow Eucalyptus! This picture is of the bark because that is all that truly matters. This particular tree was completely topped during Hurricane Dorian, but has made a strong recovery back to a very grand tree.
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Another theme from my trip was the “plants on plants” theme. I love how this tree makes a lovely home for this Staghorn Fern nestled in the crotch of it’s branches.
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A little maintenance on the living green wall outside of 1Hotel. Scissor lift required for this garden crew.
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The inside of 1Hotel also has plenty to satisfy the biophilia (innate tendency to make connections with nature). Check out these old TVs made into terrariums. The white, shelf mushrooms were a nice touch!
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And this Moss Wall, wow!
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The Raliegh Hotel is closed for construction, but their sculpture garden is open to the public. It’s a quiet hideaway just steps from the beach.
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​I just got back from the annual Digging In Gathering - for Professional Container Garden Designers and boy did it get my creative juices flowing for spring!  This year, the conference was held in Charleston, South Carolina; a city drenched in history and tons of character.  If you aren't familiar, the historic district in downtown is known for their bangin' window boxes and magical courtyard gardens.  I arrived a day before the conference started and wandered the streets on bicycle.  Believe me, I was not the only one stopping every 30 seconds to snap photos of the beautiful floral designs created by local gardeners.  I was also able to tour many of the special private gardens with the Charleston Horticultural Society and participate in a panel discussion featuring three of the top local garden designers.  Lucky me, right? The amount of thought and attention to detail in these small garden spaces still has me gitty!  South Haven, we can seriously up our window box game.  I have realized that our window to window box ratio is MUCH too low!  My new goal for 2019 is to spread more window box cheer up and down the lakeshore of southwest Michigan.  
Behold some Charleston window box beauties:
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I know these Hydrangeas have you dreaming of summer!

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Rainbow Road: Where the houses are just as colorful as the flowers!

The detail!  The happy, orange Pansies! Like I said, I'm gitty.

    It's time to pull those flower pots out of the garage and start planting. Are you up for trying a little something new this year? You don't have to re-invent the wheel. You can try these bold new color combinations to add some modern style to your front porch or patio.

1. Chartreuse and Deep Purple.
   When I say chartreuse, I mean neon lime green and when I say deep, deep purple I mean dark almost black. Either combined together or on their own, these two colors can be found in almost every modern garden planter.

Good news for Sweet Potato Vine fans. There are now so many new cultivars available that won't overtake your flower pots. Try these so you won't be battling a giant Sweet Potato Vine by summer's end.


Sweet Caroline 'Sweetheart Lime' and 'Sweet Caroline 'Jet Black' Sweet Potato Vine.

​proven winners.com


Every year we are graced with more varieties of Coleus and this year is no exception. And remember, picking off your Coleus flowers will keep your plant robust and growing strong


Color Blaze Marooned' proven winners.com


2. Bi-color Flowers
Bi-colors are popping up everywhere and are a super fun way to stay up-to-date with all the latest plants. Bi-color simply means that the individual flower is two different colors.

'Night Sky' Petunia and 'Picasso in Purple' Supertunia are statement-making new Petunia cultivars that are a must try. 'Picasso' looks great with 'Goldilocks' Creeping Jenny. Yes, you can mix Bi-colors with chartreuse for a super WOW factor!


www.provenwinners.com


www.ballseed.com


3. Moonlight Plantings
Moonlight plantings is a fancy way of saying an all-white planting and it's oh so classy. Mix white flowers with silver-foliaged accent plants for a designer's touch. Dusty Miller, 'Silver Falls' Dichondra and Licorice Plant make excellent accent plants to any Moonlight Planting.

Can't give up your beloved Geranium pots or Petunia baskets? Try switching out the dark red or pink blooms for a hot coral or even orange. The attention-grabbing, summer-sunshine-tropical colors are sure to brighten your day. I love to pair coral flowers with a Techno-heat 'Electric Blue' Lobelia or Proven Winners' 'Blue My Mind' Evolvulous.


Patriot Orange Geranium


Hot Coral Sunpatiens

​www.ballfloraplan.com


Don't be afraid to try something new this spring! It's fun to experiment with annuals because if you don't like it, you can tear it out and start over next season.

I enjoyed sharing my pictures from my latest visit to Huntington Library and Gardens so much in my last blog that I just couldn't help myself.  I had to share these pictures from a trip I took a couple years ago to a very special garden created by a very special man.  If you are ever near Bishopville, South Carolina and have the chance to stop by, I guarantee it is worth the trip.  There is a good chance that Mr. Pearl Fryar will be there himself eager to give you a tour.  He is one part horticulturist, one part artist, one part motivational speaker and 100% inspirational.  With no training at all, he took "throw away" plants from a local nursery and created a topiary garden that has baffled even the most experienced gardener and/or botanist.  The documentary film 'A Man Named Pearl' will explain the rest but now I leave you with some lovely pictures and a Pearl Quote that will always remain with me:

"If you are passionate and you talk to 100 people, it's guaranteed that one of those people is going to help you out.  Because that person has been when you are now.  Someone helped them and they will remember."

Admission to the garden is free, but accepts donations on behalf of the Pearl Fryar Garden Conservancy.

Entrance to the garden

A water feature created out of recycled materials.

These Junipers have grown together at the top to make an arch.

Pearl's deep edging technique helps keep rainwater around the base of the plants.

In the spring, Pearl plants Begonias to spell out "Love, Peace and Goodwill"

Pearl's garden statues are made to be interchangeable and can be moved about the garden as desired.

Me and Pearl

The Japanese Garden is peaceful and stunning.

I love these patterns!

...and the colors.

And then you wander through to the Bonsai Garden, where miniature gardens are works of art.

In the Desert Garden, the plants have their own space-heaters in case the temperatures dip.

Houseplants that could eat you for breakfast.

A dramatic rill at the main entrance pulls you into the gardens.

It's not every year that an ornamental grass wins Perennial Plant of the Year! Congratulations to Roy Diblik and his selection from Northwind Perennial Farm, 'Northwind' Switchgrass. A beautiful switchgrass whose strong, upright habit makes a powerful architectural statement in any garden( and not floppy, like many other cultivars). Yet, still has the beautiful, feathery seedheads and the bright, red fall color of your favorite native Switchgrass. Combines well with Coneflowers, Rudbeckia, Shastas and Liatris in the perennial garden and makes a great fall combo when planted with 'Autumn Fire' Sedum, Amsonia and 'Gro-low' Sumac.

If you have ever been to the Lurie garden at Millennium Park or the Art Institute in Chicago, then you may already be familiar with Roy Diblik's work. Diblik's designs create sweeps of color by using tough-as-nails plants that grow together as a plant community to minimizes maintenance (i.e. limit your time spent weeding, watering, trimming, mulching, etc.). For more information on designing a “Know Maintenance” garden, I highley recommend Roy Diblik's book “Small Perennial Gardens: The Know Maintenance Approach.

I planted 5 'Northwind's in my backyard last year and can't wait to see how they fared the brutal winter. I put them along a privacy fence with Rosa rugosa and Daylilies. Lots and lots of Daylilies!