Inspiration from Brookgreen Gardens

You hadn't heard from me in the past few days because I was in South Carolina -- a little beach time and a great visit to Brookgreen Gardens.  If you haven't been to Brookgreen, be sure to add it to your "gardens to visit" list.  While it was established as a place to exhibit large sculptures, the grounds of this old rice plantation is so beautifully landscaped that it looks and acts like a botanical garden.  The alee of massive live oaks festooned with billowing curtains of Spanish moss is worth the visit by itself.  Everywhere a sculpture is displayed the grounds have been landscaped with flowers and shrubs -- I even fell in love with a massive bed of ordinary begonias because of the arrangement.  

The day I visited it was exceptionally hot so it was with welcome relief that I spent lots of time in the shade gardens where huge beds of caldiums were nestled at the base of hydrangeas and gingers. 

Unfortunately this garden doesn't provide the names of the "color" plantings, just the trees and shrubs so I didn't learn which caladiums they were but I'll be on the hunt for them.  I can see lots of uses for caladiums in our shade containers and the Welcome Center garden.  Check out some of these beauties:

This white with rose colored splotches absolutely lit up the area

......and can't you just see this green with pink center caladium paired with a large pink mophead hydrangea -- and Japanese Painted ferns nestled at the base.

I haven't lost my mind and thought we could have water plants in our containers -- I just had to share this beautiful plant with you.  Large sculptures stood in the center of ponds where water lilies like this one floated gracefully at the base.



Tomorrow is fertilizer day for the city containers so I'll be back with info on how the plants are doing after my absence.  Hope you are all giving your containers regular feedings --- a weekly diluted solution goes a long way to keeping them robust and blooming well into the fall months.