Yesterday, Gail and I had the pleasure of a road trip to a garden in the wilds of southwestern Rhode Island that would have felt as far away as Borneo or any other exotic tropical place if it weren’t for the assortment of familiar native plants tucked in with the hundreds of pots of eucomis, colocasias, bananas, flamboyant trees, and gingers. We were treated to a personal tour led by this garden’s owner and designer, Louis Raymond, who is easily one of the most enthusiastic self-described plant geeks I’ve ever met. Even under the weather with a fever, Louis practically jumped out of his socks every time we noticed a particularly awesome plant or already knew of one of his fabulous finds by name.

I’m not sure many people garden the way Louis does. For one thing he gardens large. He has a Tetrapanax paperifer ‘Steroidal Giant’ planted next to his back door that surprised him by sending out a sucker that popped up in the dirt floor of his cellar — not to mention all of the pups that have come up in his terrace like unexpected dinner guests. But does its propensity to travel far and wide bother or worry him? Not one bit. He LOVES that plant and he’s thrilled that a couple of them didn’t die to the ground over the winter last year, which means he might get flowers this fall. Woot!

A lot of what Louis grows, big or small (mostly big) he grows in nursery pots, which give him all sorts of control. He can rearrange the furniture whenever he wants (I’ll have to go back to see if he does that), he can monitor the wildly different water requirements, and he can more easily overwinter all of the tender things he loves. I would wonder why he doesn’t choose to live in a southern climate except that I bet he’d be compelled to find cold storage for all of the northern climate plants he also dies for. Now he uses his cellar to overwinter some things and rents a cold greenhouse for the rest. If you look at his garden and only see how much work it would take to move everything in and out, you might be overwhelmed and miss its magic. Clearly it’s a labor of true, mad love — as is any great garden.

Louis’ enthusiasm is inspiring. We gardeners don’t mind the work we put in (we can still complain about the weather) because the process is almost the best part. But we all have different thresholds and tolerances for effort. I don’t mind pulling out shoots of rambunctious plants by hand when they go too far but someone else might prefer to confine the same plants to pots dug into the ground. What’s a lot of work in the mind of one gardener is a piece of cake to another and vice versa. I haven’t always enjoyed schlepping plants in and out of the greenhouse but Louis even made that seem like it should be a super fun thing to do — as long as you love the plants you’re moving. Suffice to say, Gail and I both left inspired to be even more adventurous. Stay tuned.

What kind of hoops do you jump through to grow the plants you love?

I used to really enjoy the challenge of staking top-heavy plants in such a way that their crutches were as invisible as possible but this year, maybe because the ground is dry enough to make shoving bamboo poles in nearly impossible, I’m kind of over it. I’ve discovered (or maybe rediscovered) an appreciation for plants that still look good when they slouch like lazy teenagers. Some of them, like yarrow have a way of leaning on their neighbors that, from some angles (perhaps not this one – below), doesn’t look like they’re a great crushing weight. I’m also kind of in love with plants that don’t have what I think it was Anna Pavord called “weak ankles.” Agastache ‘Black Adder’ and Stachys officinalis ‘Hummelo’ might be my favorite regimental soldiers ever. And if I can get away with not staking — by cutting something back instead, I will. Any Gaura lindheimeri or nicotiana that flops in the way of the mower is getting offed. No more propping.

We missed our chance to put peony hoops around the Veronica longifolia in the North Garden so each clump splayed open and leaned like drunks all over the back and middle row. Usually we carefully deadhead that one to prolong its lovely blue spikiness but I’ve taken to whacking most of the stems back to a foot or two in hopes that it will shape up for a sturdier show later. Perhaps next year we’ll add it to the list of plants that need to be lopped in late-spring early summer. I’m all for a slightly later bloom especially if the Coreopsis x ‘Full Moon’ never looked like this again. We did remember to cut back Rudbeckia ‘Henry Eilers’ and Boltonia ‘Nally’s Lime Dot’ and although they’re both already about 5′ tall, at least it doesn’t look like they’re about to fall over. Last year I constructed a web of stakes for the great burnet (Sanguisorba tenuifolia) and this year we smartly moved it back to lean against a fence again, this time in the Cutting Garden.

So that just leaves the biggies that can’t be encouraged to branch in early summer or cut back now without tremendous sacrifice. I don’t mind if the cardoon lean a little bit but they could fall like trees in a gale. Dahlias too are so brittle that if they flop, they’re down for good, like it or lump it. Sometimes I don’t mind if they fall over because their flowers always manage to face forward but when we’ve planned for their bright shiny faces to show up in the back of a border, they’ve got to stand up straight and that means tying them up to a stake long before the wind blows. And we’re still using concrete reinforcing mesh in the Cutting Garden to hold up zinnias and amaranth and anything else that might topple under its own weight. We lay the grids down on the beds before planting, using the openings as planting guides, and then raise the grids up to provide support as the plants grow. (We really should raise them up early to let the plants grow through them but — call me crazy — I don’t like it when the garden looks like it’s wearing its foundation garments on the outside.)

How and what do you stake – and what do you do to avoid staking?

I’ve gotten a couple of questions in the last week or two about what we do in the gardens to manage pests and diseases. Although a lot of you already know the answer, I don’t seem to mind repeating it for anyone who doesn’t. The short answer is: Nothing! We do not use any kind of chemical pesticides or fungicides for the sake of our own health as well as that of our volunteers, visitors, members, camp kids, pollinators, beneficial insects, birds and other wildlife. (That said, I believe Dan has sprayed some sort of bunny deterring pepper concoction in the Vegetable Garden. Not that it has worked. Also, the trees, shrubs, and lawns are managed differently.)

The long answer is: In the gardens, we try to keep plants healthy and stress-free by providing them with fertile soil (easy because the soil here is lovely) and adequate water. We amend the soil with compost, both our own and the biosolid and yardwaste mix (top grade and certified pathogen-free) made by Bristol’s composting facility, and we mulch with shredded leaves and buckwheat hulls, both of which add organic matter and aerate the soil as they break down.

We welcome insects, and the birds that eat them. We do minimal clean-up of seedheads and stalks in the fall to leave some habitat and cover for birds and insects over the winter. We have even started construction on an insect apartment house. (They’re all the rage in Europe.) It’s made of white oak, faces south for winter warmth, and we will continue to fill it with bits and bobs that that will provide nesting sites for solitary bees, lacewings, spiders, and any other critters that might find it cozy. The section with the slots is intended as a butterfly shelter but I read recently that they don’t really use those. Looks cool though.

It’s the visitors to our Rose Garden who have the hardest time believing that we don’t spray fungicides, etc. Honestly, we don’t need to. I know I’ve said this a million times already but here it is again: along with choosing disease-resistant roses, and giving them great soil and adequate water (about an inch per week), we also fertilize them 3 times over the season (in April as they break, in May/June just before peak, and in August for their last flush) using a slow release organic granular fertilizer (Espoma Bulb-Tone); we rake out the spotty leaves twice weekly; and we hand-pick Japanese beetles. But the real reason the roses look healthy is because there are other beautifully blooming plants in that garden that draw everyone’s attention away from a few yellow or lacy leaves.

In the gardens, we live and let live. Don’t you?

Do you ever round a bend in your garden, maybe coming from a direction you don’t usually, and gasp at how pretty it looks? I hope so because it’s the best, most giddy feeling. Yesterday I walked up to the North Garden from the water side of the house, not my usual route to the garden, and even though it was almost too hot to care, I was amazed at its colors and exuberance. When the garden was redesigned this past winter I was a little nervous about the new corner bed by the stone bench, imagining that those right angles might feel a little harsh. No longer. Now I can’t believe there ever wasn’t a bed and path there. I’m thrilled about how everything has grown in so quickly and am head over heels for a few of our new plants too.

I never really appreciated yarrow until we planted Achillea millefolium ‘Pink Grapefruit’ in the herb bed a couple of years ago. Now I can’t get enough of its clouds and wouldn’t mind seeing them in every garden. There are enough varieties and color choices that we could really shake it up. The one in the North Garden is ‘Terra Cotta’. It’s more golden than I thought it would be but just orange enough for true love.

Turning that corner in the garden I was also able to re-appreciate a couple of plants that I’ve become bored and annoyed with. Long leaf speedwell (Veronica longifolia) is one. I can’t stand that it needs hooping to stand up straight and absolutely hate that we forgot to do that this year. But look at how sublime those blooms are in this monochromatic combo with Geranium ‘Rozanne’. I’ve had just about enough of that one too because we planted it in so many gardens (food for thought regarding my current obsession with yarrow) but removing her is not an option because she’s too darn perfect and willing to bloom for practically ever. As for the speedwell, we’ll have to sacrifice a few flowers and try whacking it back maybe next week. (Annie at Annie’s Annuals recommends offing it 10″ from the ground for a later rebloom.)

Has your garden surprised you lately? What are the plants you’re especially thrilled with right now? Are you patting yourself on the back for making excellent choices? (Or kicking yourself for missed opportunities?)

I finally bought my very own copy of Ken Druse’s latest book Natural Companions: A Garden Lover’s Guide to Plant Combinations and if you don’t have a copy yet, it’s worth dropping everything else – plant those annuals later! – to pick it up. (I ordered mine from my favorite local bookstore and beat feet to get it as soon as it came in.) Truly, you might never look at your garden and the plants in it the same way again. I appreciated Ken’s reminder to pick flowers and foliage to see what would look well together but Ellen Hoverkamp’s digital scans of those pickings are exquisite. And then Ken takes it several steps further to illuminate plants that not only look well together but go together in various other ways, whether they’re related by “blood”, color, place, habit, use, and so on and on for well over 200 beautifully written and photographed pages.

I don’t have Ellen’s patience – or her brilliant artistic eye – or her equipment – to ever be able to create such amazing compositions but I have already started to notice the garden’s own arrangements and natural companions with a fresh eye. Some of these combinations (related more by good looks and cultural requirements than anything more thought-provoking) were planned but I think most were either lucky guesses or pure wind-blown serendipity. (Mouse over for captions, click on for larger views.)

What combinations of plants go well together in your garden? Do you think about different kinds of plant relationships when you’re working on your garden’s design?