More "Children" and they are getting bigger

In my last blog I told you that I would be doing the "giants" on the corner of Washington and Second Street.  Well, they are done!!  And so we now have 42 middle sized children, 4 baby sized children (urns inside the Park) and 6 "giant" sized children....for a total of 52 containers!  Madison is just getting prettier by the day.  Now that I'm done planting I can finally update that map.

But I wanted to share with you what I put in those gentle giants.  Took a lot of stuff to fill them -- they look good now so I can't wait to see them when they are fully grown out.  Of course, there are pansies, violas and kale, but to add some height in the middle I used a conifer.  Juniper communis 'Gold Cone' is in the shorter container.  It can tolerate the heat and drier conditions we are going to throw at it; and this variety won't get but about 18-24" wide so it won't overwhelm the pot.  New growth is yellow while fall color turns a slight shade of blue. 

 

The grass in the back container is a panicum -- a wonderful perennial grass.  Its winter look goes well with the juniper so I left it.  In the spring we'll cut it back and let the pretty blue blades stand proud.

 

Since yellow is one of the traffic stopping colors I used it as my main theme, adding purple as the accent.  Here is what I planted:

 

 



Delta Premium Pure Yellow -- a bright yellow face that will companion with just about any other color. 

 

 

The viola I used with it is Sorbet Sunny Royale (above).  There is enough purple to give contrast but also enough yellow to stand out.  I didn't get a close up of the kale that I used in both containers but it is Winterbor -- its ruffled leaf edges gives the container some movement.  These are all in the shorter container.  In the tall on in the background I used ---

 

 



 

Dynamite Blue Jeans....it practically glows (forgive the picture -- it was another windy day).  It is paired with the Delta Pure Yellow and, one of my favorite violas, Sorbet Yellow Chiffon, a non-stop bloomer -- pictured below. 

 

 

Violas are tough and bloom heavily, so if the pansies need to take a break there will still be lots of color.  Now that there are flowers in these pots maybe folks will stop using them as giant trash cans -- we can only hope.