Deborah Silver is an accomplished and experienced landscape and garden designer whose firm first opened its doors in 1986.
All that work early last week in preparation for the installation of a group of pots planted for fall came to the following. I hope you enjoy them.
Our fall container season will pick up steam from this point on, as will the fall landscape and garden. Looking forward to it.
Though we were focused on finishing a landscape project last week, we did manage to get some of our fall container plantings done. Though I have said it before, I will say it again. A celebration of the season at hand in containers is an opportunity to make an expression of the garden that is no only personal, it is immediate. The daffodils I planted yesterday are months away from their spring flowering. The trees I planted a month ago will take 10 years to get hefty. The vision I have for my landscape may be many years away from that perfect moment. I can be patient. But I can be road ready, too. Fall container plantings are a delight the minute they get finished. They do not need to much in the way of water or deadheading.
They celebrate the materials of the harvest. My trip to my local farmer’s market this morning was an education in what is available for containers for fall. Chrysanthemums, asters, and grasses seeding were abundant. Ornamental cabbage and kale-they are so beautiful right now. Cut broom corn, millet and sorghum-how I love how our history of agriculture informs and enriches the garden. Rob’s pumpkin collection on display at the shop right now is a delight to the eye. George is 2 hours away from us. But his breeding for tall and thin pumpkins with beautiful stems is a look we admire. The summation of Rob’s relationship with George is a collection of pumpkins that speaks to any gardener’s love of anything garden. Rob’s collection of pumpkins and gourds-don’t miss it.Tomorrow is the second day of our pumpkin fest. If you are a gardener who delights in the garden, come if you can.
We have had a very hot and very dry summer. The watering was endless. The coming of the fall, with cooler temperatures and torrential rains is a relief. Planting seasonal containers is a lesson about how the seasons change, and that joy that is all about a gardener’s participation. I would encourage every gardener to participate in the seasons. I do. That seasonal work enriches my gardening life.
fall containers with broom corn and cabbage
fall container with a centerpiece, purple cabbage, and creeping jenny
fall containers
fall pot with a hydrangea on standard, white ornamental cabbage and creeping jenny
fall container with dried ladder branches, preserved eucalyptus and peacock kale
fall container in front of Detroit Garden Works that includes an elegant feather grass at the center
fall in the round
fall container
fall container arrangement
deck pot planted for fall
The fall season in Michigan – sublime.
A project in the garden asks for a lot of everything from a gardener. An interesting concept, and a design that clearly communicates that concept comes first. Anyone who has grappled with a design project knows how much work goes on behind the scenes. An idea about how to accomplish that design – an approach to the work – takes that much more time and thought. An installation may take two days, two weeks or two years. But any landscape project surely asks for beautiful materials. Beautiful plants are healthy plants. Doing a proper job of siting a tree, and digging a proper hole for that plant takes time. It only makes sense to be sure the plant that is going in that hole is worthy of all the work it took to plant it. The cabbage pictured above is not only a healthy well grown plant, it is extraordinarily beautiful to look at. The color is complex, and borders on iridescent. To my eye, the shape, texture, mass and color, is riveting. Beautiful plants are incredibly exciting, and make gardening such a pleasure.
Beautiful fall materials for containers are not only a pleasure to work with, they can inspire, inform, and direct the work. A landscape plan for a client may indicate a certain species of tree, but the final decision always rests with finding that specific tree that not only fulfills the design intent, but is beautiful. There is no hard and fast standard about what constitutes beautiful. Everyone has their own idea. My projects are a a dialogue between a committed client, and my commitment to a great outcome for them. Sometimes the road is bumpy, but we get there. I like it when clients fall for what I install for them. When I plant fall containers, I am very much focused on the beauty of the materials I have available to me. Broom corn is a staple in my fall pots. The stems droop gracefully, they are so loaded with ripe seeds. The corn-like leaves twist as they dry, and add another textural element to an arrangement.
A beautiful collection of materials from which to choose is an easy idea to grasp, but what it takes Detroit Garden Works to get to that collection is a process that is a full time job for my partner, Rob. He travels all over this country, and in Europe, as he has for the past 20 years, to collect beautiful materials of all kinds. He shops locally, meaning he may travel in excess of two hours to a particular hybridizer’s pumpkin field. I can count on his determination to put together a collection that inspires my work, and the work of our clients. We have had calls for weeks about the arrival of his pumpkin collection. The fall container arrangements and plantings we install are all about the beauty of his choices of materials. He is the source for great materials for me.
He spent quite some time developing a relationship with a small company that produces dyed and preserved eucalyptus. We carry their entire range of colors. This is a relationship going back 15 years. Preserved eucalyptus is a natural material that can sustain a container planting throughout the fall and the winter. The variety of colors available provides another element to any fall arrangement.
These centerpieces for a pair of fall pots involve a combination of gorgeous materials of all kinds, and my design for this particular client. I owe a lot to those growers who made this possible. And of course to Rob, whose collection of materials make an expression like this possible.
Planting pots for fall takes some of the sting out of the gardening season coming to a close.
This finished fall container warms up the architecture. It is a personal expression that documents an interest in nature. It will be a pleasure to look at throughout the fall. The next pair of fall containers we plant will look entirely different. That is the beauty of a collection of seasonal plants and materials that is wide and deep. There is no need for any pots to sit empty and silent at the close of the gardening year. Every gardener can shop their own garden as well for dried materials, branches and seed pods.
A little late day muted light adds yet another element to the mix.
Into every gardener’s container life, a little fall is a good thing.
Fall is an incredibly beautiful season in Michigan. The sun low in the sky, and the morning fog makes every color intensely saturated. The leaves changing electrifies a fall palette of color in the landscape in a way that no flower could hope to achieve. The sugar maples are brilliantly fiery; the hydrangeas are a muted shade of brown and pink. No season celebrates color like the fall. We are in the early stages of that transition from summer to fall. This is a season that I follow closely, as I do not wish to miss one moment of it. The materials available for fall are spectacular in color. The ornamental cabbages and kales intensify in color as the temperature drops. The pumpkins and gourds are impossible to resist. Everything about them speaks to the harvest, and to fall color.
These pots are planted all around at the bottom with heuchera. I am not so much a fan of dark leaved coral bells in the summer garden. They are shockingly gloomy to me in the heat of August. In the fall, they shine in containers. These dark colors are so beautiful on a rainy fall day. I see many more growers offering large heuchera plants for sale in the fall. There are so many foliage plants with great color available. No doubt I associate and welcome certain colors with certain seasons. This is a luxury enjoyed by a gardener in a four season zone.
The window boxes in the front of the shop are showing signs of fall color. I so appreciate those years when the fall comes slowly, and the killing frost is late. The brown potato vine and the coleus are singed with cold. The color in these boxes is changing with the season. It is easy to replace certain very cold susceptible elements in a summer container with more cold tolerant plants. But letting the fall season work its magic on a a summer planting can be quite beautiful.
These urns sitting at the front door empty would be just lovely. But planted for fall, they have a warm and welcoming appeal . 
Red Bor kale is one of the most versatile of all fall container plants. They are tall enough to make a vertical statement. The crinkled dark purple leaves darken more as the temperatures get cooler. They are less rigid in shape than the other cabbages and kales, making it easy to fill in the gaps between the other plants.
Not every fall arrangement needs to be standard issue orange and yellow. There is an astonishing number of white and green pumpkins and gourds to be had. Every grower has something a little different. Every fall I see gourd shapes and color combinations I have not seen before. An arrangement of pumpkins and gourds in a window box is as lovely a celebration of the fall as a boxful of foliage and flowers.
pots at the shop
fall pots with dry hydrangeas
White kale and dry banana stems
fall container with broom corn, plum eucalyptus, orange floral picks, red bor kale and red chidori kale.
red cabbage, cirrus dusty miller, gray eucalyptus and white banana stems
Red bor kale, pink cabbage and succulents
How I am enjoying this beautiful moment.