An Awesome Start to a Spectacular Flower Garden

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Who wouldn’t want their flowers to pack a bigger punch? Afterall, Alaskan summers are so short. How can you make the most of the time and money you’ve spent on your perennials, annual baskets and planters?

Welcome to the “Make it a Garden” Alaska Tour Series, where we visit different gardens for tips and inspiration from local gardeners. This one is about starting from scratch. If you’ve recently moved or are putting in a new flower garden, or even re-thinking your current one, read on.

For a great start to a spectacular flower garden, you might consider some of these ideas from Gail Tochi of Wasilla, Alaska.

Taking flowers to a new level

You could say Gail is taking flowers to a whole new level. Eye-level, that is. And the results are extraordinary! Approaching the front door, flowering annuals on both sides of her sidewalk greet friends with a bright, rainbow of color.

The key is elevation. By placing flowers high and low and in-between, every space the eye sees when looking straight ahead is covered. Anything works: urns, shepherd’s hooks, a bar stool, a birdbath…get creative.

To achieve a bit more height, Gail set an old metal watering can on a stool and filled it with a pot of trailing purple petunias. Voila!

Diligent start to a spectacular flower garden

Gail and her husband Roger moved into their new home in June of last year. Looking at her garden though, you’d never guess that it was so new.

We all know what moving is like. By the time they were settled, the summer was all but gone. Yet the whole time, Gail had her mind on the garden. She already had a vision to jazz up the front yard that just had to wait until Spring.

The Toci’s yard was typical of newer home construction: all the vegetation is scraped off, replaced with a wide swath of lawn.

While most people put their gardens in the backyard, Gail is establishing a charming front yard scene with flower beds that open up towards the street. Right out in front for all the neighbors to enjoy.

Talk about curb appeal! Even in its first-year (when this article was written), hers is already shaping up to be the most colorful front yard in the neighborhood.

Rocks and dirt

When Spring rolled around, Gail could hardly wait to get going. She readily admits that she can be super focused when it comes to a garden project. By the end of summer, she aimed to have something to show for all the hard work. ‘Putting the garden in’ doesn’t just mean a spot to plant something. It means flowers and ALL.

If possible, Gail likes to buy two varieties of each perennial to test them to see which one performs better. She also likes moss and hopes to incorporate some of it into the garden at just the right place. For now, a moss garden is still down-the-road.

With the ideas she had kept in the back of her mind all winter, she told her husband: “I need rocks and dirt”. The happiest day of the year, she said, was when her husband brought her rocks and dirt!

Gail is one of the lucky gardeners with the ability to go collect her own boulders. Her husband had access to a truck and front end loader. They drove many miles up the highway to find the rocks she needed.

But a rock is never ‘just a rock’. Not to Gail anyway. She often hand-picked rocks for their size, shape, texture or unique appearance to add flair to her garden. The couple even managed to bring home a particularly handsome boulder to use as an accent.

Tips for rocks

TIP: Gail chose ‘good-sized’ rocks that she could back-fill with a generous depth of soil for healthy root development and robust growth. More depth allows the soil to retain moisture so it won’t dry out as quickly, especially in windy areas. Likewise, boulders should be large enough to make a particularly nice showcase for cascading perennials such as purple aubrieta, creeping jenny, and sedum. Those with mounding habits like hen and chicks and artemisia (silver mound) can be nestled in between.

Boulders add beauty and interest

The tendency is to dig a garden bed into the ground, rather than plant on top of it. One way to make your flowers more noticeable is to elevate them a bit by planting on a mound. The boulders hold the dirt in. Not only that, rocks and boulders give a lovely shape and definition to a flower bed.

Another positive with boulders is that they absorb heat in the summer which warms the ground. This, in turn, encourages perennials and flowering bulbs to emerge a bit earlier in the spring. Rocks and boulders of any size are available from a local landscape company, unless you get lucky with some friends that have the right equipment.

Artistry with logs and driftwood

To soften the boulders and give her garden more of a country-meadow look, Gail adds in some logs and driftwood.

Putting in a garden is a work of art, after all. Gail is the type who is quite particular about where things go. Rocks and logs and driftwood have to be in “just the ‘right’ place”. Like picking the boulders, she chose logs that had a certain size and character to them.

The rough texture and color of the bark on this old birch log (See photo below), really enhance the setting for this gorgeous little willow shrub making it look right at home.

Both Gail and her sister who lives across town, love to use driftwood as accent pieces in their gardens. They often camp at the small coastal town of Anchor Point, a gold mine for driftwood left high and dry along the beach. Some pieces look more like modern sculpture than mere driftwood.

Incorporating natural materials such as logs and driftwood adds character and makes the garden visually interesting. It’s a great backdrop that actually helps the flowers stand out.

Planting scheme

Making the rounds from greenhouse to greenhouse, she picked out a variety of perennials, flowering blubs and a few annuals to fill in-between. Gail planted her garden simpy by sticking plants in wherever they seemed to fit the best. The scheme has a wonderful randomness about it.

In hopes of crowding out weeds, she planted them fairly close together. Most of us have learned to leave room for a plant to mature, but nature can’t resist a vacuum. Weeds tend to fill in before the plant ever reaches that stage. However, once a plant exceeds its space, you can always dig it up and divide it, or cut it back growth to keep it small. While you wait, closer plantings give a more natural look like fields of flowers you see in the wild.

Gail says she’s still learning about perennials, but was pleased with the effect she strived for. Towering behind some shorter speedwell, was a patch of daisies. “They just kind of dance there” she said, as the flowers gently swayed in the afternoon breeze.

Garden decor

The sellers left a little something behind for the Toci’s: an outhouse. Don’t worry, it’s not a real one!

In actuality, the pint-sized outhouse (complete with a moon carved in the door) was made as a cover over the well cap sticking up out of the front lawn. Since many people don’t like the look of well or septic stubs sticking up in their yard, they cover them with plastic boulders or disguise them with paint. Or in this case, an outhouse.

Gail considered the “outhouse” a focal point–and a very Alaskan one at that! She simply worked her garden scheme around it.

Making it work

The addition of garden decor is yet another good start to a spectacular flower garden. Gail is very artistic, so, like her plantings, the garden ornaments must also have a special place of their own.

There’s a way to use garden art so that your pieces pull your theme together and make an impact. There’s large focal points like the mini outhouse. But smaller pieces have a role, too.

Gail likes to hide some of her figurines so you enjoy looking for them and discovering them. Of course, they’ll be more noticeable in the Spring, but by mid-summer when plants mature, they’ll play hide and seek with you!

Story behind the wheelbarrow planter

One thing Gail absolutely loves is running rich, fertile soil through her fingers. Mixing her own concoction of garden soil and compost for a wheelbarrow planter, she thrusts her bare hands right in! She never uses gloves. “Yes, it stains your hands and sure gets under your fingernails”, she says, “But it feels so good to get your hands dirty!”

She tells the story of the rusty, vintage wheelbarrow that she found on the FaceBook marketplace. The woman said it belonged to her husband who had passed away and it was a favorite tool of his. The woman teared up as the account brought back strong memories. She really hoped the wheelbarrow would go to someone who would appreciate it. She asked Gail to please send a picture when she got it planted full of flowers.

A trend-setting fence

One day, Gail and her sister Karen were garage sale-ing together. They came upon a house with a split rail wood fence. Only instead of being in an ordinary straight line, like most fences are, this one had a whimsical, zig-zag configuration. It was precisely the look she wanted for her own yard.

She asked the homeowner if she could take photos of the fence to show her husband. As we all know, it’s easier for a guy to see a picture than for his wife to try and describe it! Especially since he’s gonna be doing most of the work.

There’s so much thought that went into this pretty fence installation. It is set back from the edge of the right-of -way, so some of the garden can be planted in front of it. The rounded, somewhat octagonal-shape presents a warm, welcoming look, while still defining a property boundary. Who knows, maybe it will start a trend?

Night lights for the ‘happy place’

When someone goes to great lengths to display their garden out front, it’s obviously their joy and delight. “My garden is my happy place”, Gail says. She enjoys every little detail that makes her garden warm and friendly, even at night.

Solar Lanterns

She adds solar lanterns hung on the fence, as well as throughout the garden. Here in the land of the Midnight Sun, that means it’s not lighting up until August. But when it does, the look is magical!

This little candle lantern has a flickering flame.

Wrapping it up

By the end of August, having gone like gang-busters…Gail admits to being a little wiped out. Who wouldn’t be? And yet she still had a few things left to plant. Thankfully, in Alaska, we can plant right up to a frost as long as we can still work the soil. But sooner is always better than later so the plant has a chance to get adjusted to its new digs.

Over the course of one summer, a very determined gardener made a ton of progress. If you’ve got the time and energy, it doesn’t have to be years for a garden project to take shape. Gail’s project makes a huge difference in how her home looks, and the garden out in front brings smiles to others in her neighborhood. It’s a great feeling of accomplishment!

I can’t wait to see how the Toci’s garden develops and matures in the years to come.

Final take-aways

If you’ve moved or are installing a new garden, here are the keys that are a helpful start to a spectacular flower garden:

1) ELEVATION: display your flowers up off the ground. Use hangers, pedestals and urns to set pots and baskets on. Plant a wheelbarrow. Fill the whole visual spectrum by placing some up higher, others down lower, and some in-between.

2) GROUP TOGETHER: If you only have a handful of baskets or planters, group them closer together for one bold color spot for greater impact.

3) GARDEN DECOR: Use garden decor that fits the nature and character of your garden. Have a few larger focal points, but “hide” other pieces where you’ll love ‘finding them’ as you go about watering and weeding.

4) LET THERE BE LIGHT: consider inexpensive solar lights to make your garden look inviting and magical at night.

5) KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK: Be diligent and determined to accomplish a project in a certain amount of time so you can begin enjoying the fruits of your labor.

SEE these gardens for inspiration and ideas

Be sure to visit some of the other Alaskan gardens on the tour:

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