Name: Allison
Location: Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
Size: 250 square feet
Favorite Resource: White Flower Farm, GRDN
Pitch:
"I live in an apartment building surrounded by single-family
brownstones, and this deck is framed by their enormous, gorgeous
backyards. There are lush trees overhead, so I've gone with partial
shade to shade plants. ..." [more below]
My favorites are the Geranium Rozanne, a fairly
hardy perennial with blue-purple flowers (it's just to the viewer's
left of the lounge chair, but it hasn't started blooming yet), and my
oak-leaf hydrangea which is very young and not too visible.
If you look closely, it's behind the blue table. If you can't have an oak tree, it's very very nice to at least get the leaves! Both are from White Flower Farm. I've had a lot of success ordering their plants by mail. I also, of course, love a good trip to GRDN, which is just a few streets away.
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Now this is what I call a splendid example of an urban oasis. Lovely!
Holly
It really is lovely. I confess the only reason I gave it a silver instead of gold is because of the blue grid table and white plastic chairs. I think they detract from an otherwise wonderful setting.
absolutely lovely!
OH - so lovely!!!
When can I move in?
Beautiful!! Makes me wish I was there lounging on the chair reading a good book.
Love, love, love
did I say LOVE?!
Yep! This gets my vote! What a lovely space you've created.
I'm have a mostly shade/partial area also. Would you mind sharing the names of the plants you have used and where online you bought them? BTW, what do you do with your plants in winter? Thanx!
Hi Stylin,
Thank you so much. I am very much still a beginning gardener, but I can tell you that astilbes are a great way to get color into a shady garden. Hostas are lush and mine have come back bigger and healthier after the winter. This year, I also planted some foxglove which did very well, and a friend suggested jack-in-the-pulpit though I haven't tried it. I bought many of my plants online from White Flower Farm. Here are some that have done particularly well. Geranium Rozanne, Hydrangea paniculata "limelight," Hydrangea quercifolia "Alice," Pulmonaria saccharata "Mrs. Moon," and Eleutherococcus sieboldianus 'Variegatus'(a really fast-growing shrub). As for weathering the winter, last fall, I bought a $40 portable greenhouse from Target and did my best to set it up on the deck. Most of the plants spent the winter in there. To be honest, I wasn't all that thrilled with it, but it did make a couple of degrees difference. Good luck and thank you again!