All plants listed in the articles below are available for sale at Tranquil Lake Nursery.

Color is certainly one of the most temperamental elements of garden design. Gardeners know that finding just the right color can be a true challenge, as they seek out the elusive shade of true blue, brown, black or green and shun the common hues.

Though yellow is a primary color, it offers sophisticated shades running from bright chrome yellow to the palest primrose. In the garden, yellow shows up in the distance and in the low light of the evening hours. Yellow-green, or chartreuse, appears as the color of fresh spring foliage newly unfurling from winter buds. The chartreuse foliage of yellow ninebark, Physocarpus opulifolius 'Luteus' is a knock out as a background for red or purple daylilies, liatris and Russian sage in the summer border. It is just as a refreshing as a combination for late September asters such as Aster 'Coombe Fishacre' and Aster 'Purple Dome'.

Combine varying intensities of yellow foliage and flowers for an intricate tone-on-tone composition. The fine-textured foliage and chartreuse color of Spiraea thunbergii 'Ogon' echoes the pale yellow flowers of Coreopsis 'Moonbeam'. Punctuate this with the coarser texture and gold flowers of Rudbeckia 'Goldstrum' and Hemerocallis 'Stella de Oro' for a stunning long-season sensation.

Yellow illuminates the evening garden. The nocturnal flowering daylily, Hemerocallis 'Three Seasons', will carry its candelabra-branched torch of pale flowers through the evening. Combine it with the fragrant flowers and cream-variegated foliage of Phlox 'Nora Leigh' and edge the border with Coreopsis 'Moonbeam', Berberis thunbergii 'Gold Nugget' and fragrant Lavender 'Provence' for an evening extravaganza.

The huge, chartreuse leaves of Hosta 'Sum and Substance' in combination with white flowers of snakeroot, Cimicifuga racemosa, and the variegated foliage and yellow flowers of Lysimachia punctata 'Alexander' adds panache to a shady border. Yellow flowers and foliage add a cheerful note to the garden. Cheer up your garden with yellow. A garden without yellow is like a day without sunshine.

by Warren Leach

Design to Defy Drought

The rain dance and the watering brigade started early this year. One action hopeful to precipitate "normal" rainfall the other to counteract inevasible drought. This year's weather is in sharp contrast to last June's monsoon rainfalls. Meteorological feast or famine is a challenge gardeners learn to endure. Though municipal water rationing may dull verdant green lawns to a shade of khaki brown, a well planned mixed perennial border can sally forth with lush foliage and vibrant colored flowers. Savvy gardener scheme to buffer a drought's detrimental effects with site sensitive designs, careful plant selections and tried and true horticultural practices. The display gardens at Tranquil Lake Nursery rely on these techniques.

The nursery soil is a sandy loam which is remarkably free of rocks and stones. This soil type is excellent for promoting long vigorous roots on daylilies and irises (which we dig and ship bare-root) but without adequate rainfall, it is also perennially in need of supplemental irrigation .

Soil preparation and mulching is an important practice in our display gardens as well as the production fields. Incorporating liberal amounts of organic matter to soil - aged manure, compost, peatmoss - before planting helps to retain moisture and nutrients in both light and heavy textured soils. Mulches also aid in cutting water loss. A mulch layer on top of the soil can be an organic materials such as pulverized pine bark, pine needles, composted leaves or salt marsh hay. Stone can be an attractive inorganic mulch. Either crushed stone or flat shards laid in patterns or shingle-fashion, creates a barrier to excessive soil moisture loss. Some plants especially thrive next to stones, particularly species native to arid Mediterranean-like regions. Lavenders and thymes prefer a stone mulch which keeps their basal stems and crowns dry while still conserving moisture to their roots. Combine these practices of using soil amendments and mulching with prudent plant picking. Seek plants with indestructible foliage to form a structural framework which can carry your garden through tough times.

Plants native to the sea shore, rocky beaches and sandy dunes have succulent, waxy or fuzzy leaves to conserve water. These functional foliage characteristics are quite often very ornamental. A native to the shingle beaches of England, sea kale, Crambe maritima, sports scalloped succulent blue-green foliage. Combine with our native sea lavender, Limonium latifolium, sea goldenrod, Solidago sempervirens, beach wormwood, Artemisia stelleriana 'Silver Brocade, blue balloon flower, Platycodon grandiflora, and the yellow daisies of Coreopsis 'Moonbeam' and Inula ensifolia, for a sunny drought tolerant sunny border combination with attractive silver and blue foliage and yellow and blue flowers.

Plants originating from meadows and prairie grass lands have deep, water seeking roots. Many members of the pea family, Leguminosa, and grass family, Poacea, are candidates for the dry garden. False indigo, Baptisia austalis, grows to form a sturdy shrub like stature. Baptisia blooms in June with beautiful blue flowers and maintains a display of attractive blue-green foliage into the fall. Leadplant, Amphora canescens, also in the pea family, and also exhibits fine foliage and extreme drought tolerance. Leadplant is a slow growing woody shrub attaining two to three feet in height and harmonizes with herbaceous perennials and grasses. Little bluestem, Schizachyrium scorparium, is an under appreciated native grass that has much to offer in our gardens. It is commonly found growing along roadsides and derelict wastelands in dry, sterile soils. This habitat is a testament to little bluestem's hardy constitution and not a slight to its ornamental characteristics. The cultivar 'The Blues' sports exceptionally beautiful blue tussocks of stems and foliage which turn amber with frost and offers colorful contrast throughout the winter landscape.

A selection of our native switch grass, Panicum virgatum 'Prairie Sky ' is bluer than the very handsome cultivar 'Heavy Metal'. Both of these switch grasses provide durable four to five foot high foliage that holds its hue until hard frost in November. Utilize the fine textured blue foliage of these grasses with the compound leaf forms of Baptisia and Amorpha for a framework through which the bright golden rays of Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm' can shine. Echo this gold and blue theme with the chartreuse foliage and blue flowers of Caryopteris x 'Worcester Gold' and the unflagging display of Russian sage, Perovskia atriplicifolia.

The native Bluestar, Amsonia tabernaemontana and its relative Amsonia ciliata bear blue flowers in June and wear a cloak of clear yellow fall foliage. Amsonias can not be overly extolled for their tolerance to drought in either sun or shade. Their lush green foliage remains unblemished even in dust dry soil.

Is there a drought defying color theme being outlined? Blue does look cool, even in intolerable heat. Yellow is its refreshing color complement. Blue and yellow, in varying degrees of intensity, combine well with either the pastel or sultry end of the color spectrum. Pray for rain.   by Warren P. Leach

Drought Tolerant Perennials