More than 70 large containers are brimming with flowers and plants of every description and artfully arranged throughout the landscape of Craig Berry at 807 W. Washington St, the August Jefferson Garden Yard of the Month recipient.
Showstoppers include six-foot tall cannas of bright yellow, red and orange and giant elephant ear plants flanking a wood deck covered with a trumpet-vine wrapped pergola. Most pots are filled with colorful annuals like the wave petunias in the front yard; cosmos, angelonia, scaevola and others in the back.
There’s also space devoted to perennials such as coneflowers, brown-eyed Susans, ornamental grasses and a unique sage with bright pink accents. A row of peonies borders the yard and is a full of blooms in May.
Thanks to decades of experience and a good eye, Berry says he doesn’t shop for plants with a list or a color scheme in mind. His purchases, made at garden centers in and around Jefferson, are based on the potential he sees in the plant and the space he wants to fill.
Flexibility is key to flowers and sometimes they must be moved to a different spot if they’re not “happy.” Berry would admit that the secret to successfully growing container flowers is a regular water and fertilization schedule. “Put it on the calendar that you fertilize on a certain day. Then it’s not forgotten,” he said.
