10 Summer Gardens Ideas and tips

Periwinkle Plant

Periwinkle is a perennial vine and a low-growing, evergreen ground cover plant with glossy green leaves and small, violet-blue flowers. It is often used to fill in garden spaces and control erosion. Incorporating it into landscaping offers many benefits that add beauty and functionality to outdoor spaces. This versatile ground cover brings lushness, adaptability, erosion control, low-maintenance care, and soft elegance to garden settings. Periwinkle - Vinca minor is famous for its blue flowers, and this flower is an excellent groundcover. Unlike some groundcovers, it proliferates without becoming invasive. Because of this, many home gardeners and landscape designers like to add this cheery flower to their landscape. Periwinkle Plant Has Many Names It initially originated in central and southern Europe. Classified as a part of the dogbane family, this flower quickly spread to the Baltic States, the Netherlands, and the Caucasus. Today, it is grown around the world as a groundcover. Sometimes, people may refer to this groundcover by other common names, like creeping myrtle or myrtle. Periwinkle Plant Helps With Soil Erosion  Periwinkle Plant is truly a gardener’s delight. Its strong roots help to control soil erosion, and its trailing vines are full of glossy leaves. Because deer don’t usually like it, you don’t have to worry about it disappearing. Plus, it can handle some foot traffic, so it doesn’t get trampled easily. Because it is considered an evergreen, it will keep its glossy, green leaves in the winter. After you plant it, the vines will gradually spread over neighboring areas. While it mainly grows along the ground, this vine can sometimes get up to 16 inches tall. Unlike other vines, it never climbs or twines around trees or walls. Instead, you can enjoy having it as a permanent ground cover in your garden. The Periwinkle Plant Flowers Are Sure to Impress The most notable part of this vine is its flowers. They are typically created between early spring and the middle of summer. Sometimes, you will still notice a few flowers in autumn. All of the flowers have a violet-purple shade and a five-lobed corolla. On some species, you can even find white and pale purple flowers. With Periwinkle Plant, you will have an evergreen mat in your garden beds throughout the year. The flowers remain for many of spring and summer so that you can appreciate bright blue pops. Thanks to its rapid growth, you don’t have to wait long to see this lovely vine fill empty areas in your yard.

English Ivy

English Ivy is a low-growing ground cover plant; it has glossy, heart-shaped leaves and produces small, inconspicuous brownish-purple flowers nestled among its dense, carpet-like foliage. It is a fantastic and versatile plant with several landscaping benefits. This evergreen vine is native to Europe and Western Asia and is widely embraced for its aesthetic appeal, adaptability, and practical applications. English Ivy is a woody evergreen perennial vine and foliage plant proliferating on vertical surfaces like trees, walls, fences, and trellises. The ancient Greeks believed the plant was sacred to the god Dionysus, and pagan druids revered it as a symbol of the divine feminine. In classical Latin, “hedera” refers to the ability to grasp, which is in keeping with the vine’s nature. English Ivy Loves Shade Native to Europe, Scandinavia, and parts of Russia, the Hedera helix is nearly ubiquitous in Britain and is naturalized and prolific in many regions of the United States. In the wild, the plant grows under, on trees, and up the sides of rocky cliffs, favoring moist, shady areas out of the sun. Mature Hedera helix vines typically grow up to 80 feet tall and span a three- to five-foot width. Their climbing stems bear young, five-lobed leaves, while their fertile stems bear adult, spade-shaped leaves. These deep-green leaves can vary in size between two and four inches long. The top of the plant will often develop clusters of small, greenish-yellow flowers that bloom from late summer until late autumn. These nectar-rich blossoms will eventually yield a crop of small purple-black to orange-yellow berries that persist into winter. English Ivy Kills Weeds Its bright green foliage can add all-season color to any landscape and beautify forlorn spaces. Its vines can be trained to climb many stable vertical surfaces or grown as a ground cover to suppress weeds. Since Hedera helix proliferates, it can make a good screen on a fence or trellis. When carefully grown on exterior building walls, it can protect their surfaces from exposure to bad weather and help regulate the temperature. Within the United States, Hedera helix can provide food and habitat for wildlife. Butterflies and moths eat their leaves, bees feed on their flowers’ nectar, and birds eat their berries in winter. The foliage often shelters insects and small animals and sometimes attracts nearby deer. English Ivy Is An Evergreen Hedera helix is a beautiful evergreen vine with a rich history. When you plant it in your garden, you can enjoy its charming English ivy character all year.

Partridge Berry

Partridge Berry is a low-growing, trailing evergreen plant with glossy leaves and small, white to pinkish tubular flowers, followed by bright red berries commonly found in woodland settings. It is a charming and low-growing ground cover that offers several benefits when incorporated into landscaping designs. If you're looking for a perennial that will add delicate beauty to your garden all year long, look no further than the Partridge berry plant. If you've ever walked through a forest in the eastern U.S., you have probably encountered this delicate woodland creeper. This flowering vine has beautiful red berries, bright green leaves, and star-shaped, white flowers. It blossoms in the late spring. As a creeper with long tendrils, it's notable because it doesn't use its tendrils to climb; instead, it creeps along the forest floor. It is native to many forests in eastern North America and has been seen as far north as Canada and south as Florida. Partridge Berry Has Dark Green Evergreen Leaves This evergreen features small, compact stems under its flowers. Its dark green leaves don't change color or fall on the ground like other plants, so there's no messy cleanup. If you want to attract bees, birds, and other friendly visitors to your garden, you can do it with this attractive, easy-to-grow vine. Partridge Berry Makes A Great Ground-Cover Despite its delicate appearance, this flowering vine is hardy enough to create groundcover that stays attractive in any season. Its glossy green leaves stand out in the fall against the falling brown leaves. Enjoy the beauty and fragrance of its bright white flowers in spring and summer. The bright red berries will remind you of holly and other winter delights. Partridge Berry Grows And Spreads Quickly Partridge Berry Is also versatile. Although it grows thick on the ground, you can use it in borders, walkways, paths, or anywhere you want an attractive, hardy cover. It's ideal in rock gardens or other hardscape settings. Once set up in the soil, it spreads out thickly, rooting itself deeply into the soil and creating a thick layer of leaves. In short, this common vine will bring uncommon beauty and enjoyment to any garden.

Wisteria Vine

The Wisteria Vine is a highly fragrant woody trailing plant known for its cascading clusters of fragrant, pea-like flowers in lavender colors, often grown on pergolas, trellises, and arbors for its ornamental. They are renowned for their stunning beauty and hold great value in landscaping due to their numerous attributes. The Stunning flowers of The Wisteria Vine This beautiful Wisteria Sinensis is a vine-covered in pale purple flowers and bright green leaves. Its stems create woody plants that can either twist together to create a trunk-like appearance or elongate to twine around supports. The plant can expand up to 20 to 35 feet in length, and it can support multiple plants that branch out from the central stem. Wisteria Vine is a highly fragrant woody plant known for its cascading clusters of lavender-colored, pea-like flowers. It is often grown on pergolas, trellises, and arbors. The characteristic flowers of this plant dangle in long strings of blossoms all over the plant. Clusters around 12 inches hang off the plant and hold rows of small, regularly spaced blooms. Individual flowers feature a large petal at the top and two smaller petals cupped together around a center with yellow-green stamens. Flower petals can be all shades of purple and white, and some may have a bluish or pinkish tint. It's common for the flower clusters to have a pleasant, ombre appearance, with flowers at the tip of the cluster being a much darker shade of purple. Wisteria Vine Is Flexible  Since this plant's flexibility can twist into many shapes, it's a highly versatile landscaping option. Some people prefer to keep their plant as a tree or bush. It can be a charming accent that produces clusters of fragrant flowers wherever you place it. You can also set this plant near a supportive trellis or wall if you want a genuinely eye-catching landscaping structure. Especially when planted in bunches, you can create stunning arcs, tunnels, ceilings, and walls of beautiful purple flowers. Wisteria Vine Has Stunning Foliage Wisteria Vine usually blooms around early May before the plant has even started to sprout leaves. After having a lush coat of nothing but purple blossoms for a while, the plant begins to produce small, lime-green leaves that blend beautifully with the flowers. The flowers leave in summer, and the leaves gradually darken to a rich, emerald green. Once the weather cools, the leaves turn a brilliant yellow before falling away to reveal the fascinating twists and loops of the underlying branches.