Garden Tour Series
Color! Color! Color!
Everywhere you look is brilliant, eye-catching color! Pick up some tips and tricks from this talented gardener to give your flowers a more dazzling impact.
Karen Erickson and her husband Walt are friendly, easy-going folks who love the outdoors. They’re both retired, but they are busy bees. Together they have created beautiful spaces to relax and enjoy under Alaska’s midnight sun. “This is where we spend the late afternoons”, Walt says, gesturing to some Adirondack-style chairs under a shade tree. “We eat dinner out here all the time.”
The Erickson’s place on the outskirts of Wasilla, is former homestead land and hayfields that were a part of the Matanuska Valley’s farming heritage. For a while, as one of the first houses in the subdivision, neighbors were few and far between.
Today, there are quite a few neighbors. They wave as they drive by or stop to chat and admire the couple’s extraordinary garden. For the Erickson’s, it’s also a labor of love to fill their front yard with flowers for the joy it brings to other people!
A dazzling flower garden
It’s hard to know where to start in Karen’s expansive garden. Each summer, she and her husband take on a different project area around the yard. They work well together as a team. As Karen puts it, she’s the “vision” and he’s the “brawn” who does all the heavy lifting. Recently, they installed new garden beds that front their neighborhood street where passersby are taking notice.
“We don’t do this just for ourselves,” Karen said. “We’re thrilled that the garden makes other people happy.” One of those ‘happy people’ is an elderly neighbor who can’t do gardens herself anymore. But she loves to watch the Erickson’s work and the sprawling display of colorful flowers makes her smile.
Flowers and a zig-zag fence
Most people plant flowers inside their fence. Not the Ericksons. One thing that makes their yard stand out is a beautiful, wooden split rail fence. They intentionally set the fence back a bit from the property line to make room in front of it for a garden.
But instead of an ordinary straight line, Karen wanted the fence to zig-zag. The result is a playful, informal look that still provides a sense of boundary.
Tips and tricks for dazzling impact
Alaska’s summers are short and intense. Therefore, winter-weary gardeners are eager to surround themselves with color as early as Spring temperatures allow. And to prolong those blooms all the way through August and into September if possible.
When it comes to flowers, Karen’s a pink & red gal while her husband is fond of yellow. While it may not be the most favored color at the greenhouse, Walt likes yellow because it’s bright and cheerful like sunshine.
Here are a 7 tips and tricks that Karen uses to give her flowers more impact.
1) Display flowers at different levels
Karen is a master when it comes to her flower displays. Most of her planters and hanging baskets are at or near eye-level, rather than planted in the ground. This fills in the vertical gaps so as you gaze across the yard, you’re brought face-to-face with vibrant blooms in every direction.
There’s a pot of flowers on nearly every surface…on a chair, a free-standing shepherd’s hook, a tree stump, a garden cart. An un-used birdbath becomes the perfect plant stand.
A vertical display–like the tower in the photo above– is a very effective space-filler.
Karen made another discovery one year. Instead of planting in a whisky barrel, she decided to turn it upside down and use it as a plant stand. Now, both the flowers and the rustic beauty of the barrel can be admired.
Benefits of displaying flowers in pots
No Weeds:
Flowers planted in a pot and set on some type of pedestal means no tackling weeds! Your flowers will always stand out. It’s less time on hands and knees and less bending over when tending to your plants.
Fills in under and around Trees:
Another great benefit is that potted flowers fill in the gaps underneath trees. If you’ve ever tried to plant flowers in the ground around a tree, you know how problematic and short-lived that effort is. The tree roots hog all the water and nutrients in the soil. After a few years, the flower bed becomes a mass of roots. Plants cease to perform well under these conditions.
The Erickson’s avoid all that by keeping things above ground. They created a delightful scene around two large cottonwoods in the front yard. Plants on pedestals, hanging baskets from branches, assorted flower pots here and there and the soft, gurgle of a fountain make an eye-catching corner for hanging out.
The rope is a hawser (tow rope for a ship) the couple found partly buried in the sand while beachcombing. Strung between two trees, it adds a great deal of interest and rugged character to the scene that compliments the rugged appearance of the trees.
The downside of container plants:
The only downside is that flowers planted in pots generally dry out faster. When there are multiple containers, it’s easier to forget about some of them. You’ll need to check them often and water more regularly.
Create Raised flower beds
Another way to elevate flowers is with a raised bed.
Walt used concrete blocks to build this raised bed for Karen’s “Serenity Area”. The gray blocks resemble stone and help create a more natural-looking environment. To soften the border, Karen plants creeping jennys and other trailing flowers that cascade over the edge and help disguise some of the bricks.
2) Use lots of annuals for continual color
Flowering annuals are the most desired for providing long-lasting color. While Karen also incorporates some perennials in her garden beds, it’s the annuals that really pack a punch.
The difference is that perennials typically bloom once for 3-4 weeks and that’s it. But annuals, if regularly dead-headed, watered and fertilized, will provide an entire season’s worth of brilliant color.
3) Frequent dead-heading
“Dead-heading” or “Cleaning” are terms that describe the process of pinching off dead blossoms. After the flower dies, the plant puts all of its energy into seed production. By snipping off faded blooms, the plant turns its efforts into producing more flowers. And that’s what you want!
Karen spends about 1-1/2 hours each day deadheading. (unless it’s raining). With clippers in hand, she moves from plant to plant like a bumblebee, removing every spent flower.
To maintain a dazzling flower garden all summer long, it’s imperative to make dead-heading a regular habit. Want more proof? All the photos in this story were taken the 1st week of August!
4) Water & fertilize regularly
To prolong your flowers and keep your dazzling flower garden looking its best takes time. Karen spends about 2 hours a day just watering.
5) Plant flowering trees
Ornamental trees with masses of blooms are stunning in your yard. The Erickson’s have many mature flowering trees. One of them is a 40-year Mock Orange. They also have a Rose Tree of China, Dwarf Manchurian Lilac, old-fashioned purple Lilac, and Canadian pink Lilac.
Their Nan King cherry does incredibly well in colder climates. It’s a huge attraction for birds that just love the berries! They also have both white and pink flowering honeysuckle plus two varieties of crab apple.
The wonderful thing is that all these trees blossom at different times, so their front yard is an always changing color wheel.
6) Use a weed mat and mulch
Get more flower power. Use a weed mat to keep the weeds down so they don’t compete with your flowers. You won’t have to mow, either!
To be perfectly honest, you’ll still get weeds popping up here and there. But they’ll be much easier to manage. A money-saving tip is to use sheet cardboard instead of buying commercial landscape fabric. Large sheets of cardboard are available at your local recycling center for pennies.
It’s cheaper to use ground-up wood chips from a tree-cutting company, than to buy the dyed bark from the hardware store.
*Local readers: free wood chips are available at Gage Tree Service in Wasilla, but you have to come pick it up yourself.
7) Accent flowers with garden decor
Although Karen says her figurines have seen better days, she’s had them for decades and has grown attached to them. Still, the weathered and worn surfaces and faded colors blend in with the casual, country garden theme she’s established.
A well placed log, rock or grouping of rocks, are natural elements that make a nice backdrop for the flowers.
Karen’s husband, Walt makes whimsical driftwood characters that hang out in the couple’s garden. Take a quick peek at the story HERE. I know you’ll get a kick out of them!
Displays that show off your flowers:
Karen also excels at creating vignettes or “little groupings” throughout her garden spaces. A chair over here… a wooden garden cart over there… and a wishing well are charming ways to showcase her flowers.
Chair painted crisp white with baskets of hot pink petunias.
Broken pots and memory pieces
It’s important to personalize gardens with things that evoke fond memories and which are meaningful to you. Karen had a lovely clay pot that had belonged to her mother. One day, Walt accidentally knocked it over with the lawn mower and it broke into several pieces. But instead of throwing it away, she found she could still use it. In some ways, it’s even better. “We’re all like broken pots”, she said, “but Christ puts us back together.”
Other memory pieces she incorporates are the unique park benches that also were her mothers. Karen has three of them in various places around the garden.
Final Thoughts
Some useful take-aways
I’m excited about all the great ideas I got during my visit to Karen’s garden. I hope they are useful to you, too.
Key points worth remembering:
- Use lots of annuals for continuous color and deadhead them regularly
- Display your flowers at different levels
- Think vertical! Set flower pots on a pedestal so they’re closer to eye-level
- Make a raised bed using wood, cement blocks or boulders
- Plant Flowering trees
- Use eye-catching vignettes (wishing well, garden cart, wheelbarrow etc.) to showcase your flowers
It’s a lot of sweat equity to have the prettiest house on the block. With these tips and tricks for a dazzling flower garden perhaps you’ll have the satisfaction of making someone’s day a little brighter!
More garden articles you may enjoy
Plant a Window box that envies
How to shop for perennials at the Garden Center
Non-traditional groundcovers for color and texture
What a gorgeous garden! Love the fence and the use of old items like chairs and broken pots. I’m hoping to try some raised bed gardening next year. I experimented by buying and trying some felt pots and they worked really well. My calendulas are blooming in them still! I do have to remember to water them frequently, but it is worth it.
I’m so glad you enjoyed the story. Gardeners love to share what works for them and it was such a pleasure to get to tour this one!