Quarryhill Botanical Gardens

Quarryhill Botanical Gardens, located near Glen Eden in California's Sonoma Valley, was founded in 1987.  It is a 25 acre botanical garden that houses one of the largest collections of Asian plants in North America.  Visitors will enjoy flowering Asian trees and plants, magnolias, rhododendrons, and walking paths with places to sit and enjoy the beautiful ponds and waterfalls.

The gardens are open daily from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.  Admission is $10.00 for adults and $5.00 per child.

Fall Container Gardens

Fall is a great time to experiment with different plants and create attractive container gardens. It doesn't have to be restricted to mums. I recently made one with ornamental peppers, cabbage, violets, pansies, wirevine, and . . . a mum. It looks beautiful!

The one pictured above, done by Estabrooke Farms in Yarmouth, Maine caught my eye. I like how the snap dragons look like candy corn. The purple nemesia looks so pretty against it. In case you're wondering, the other plants in the pot are red snap dragons and leather leaf sedge.

Get creative with textures and leaf colors. Grasses work well, because they add height and contrast. You can also choose to plant one type of plant in a container and group a bunch of containers of contrasting plants together. The effect is pretty.

Just because summer is over, doesn't mean you can't have pretty plants. Have fun adding some splashes of color!