Garden structure trend brings a touch of the tropics

by Len Lear

This summertime, region landscape designers aren’t just sticking to what’s community. 

Tropicals this kind of as palms, crotons, cannas, hibiscus and birds of paradise are coming into vogue – possibly as companions to hardier crops or for tropical beds on their individual, according to Susan Galka, of Romancing The Yard landscape design organization in Wyncote.

“They’re a daring and delightful surprise together with the bountiful palette of what will increase in the Philadelphia area,” said Galka, who has been serving clients for 27 yrs. “Some yrs back, a fantastic consumer who has since passed absent insisted upon banana trees amidst her additional official plantings.”

Even though rising tropical vegetation in containers is a definite pattern, Galka stated, incorporating them into neighborhood gardens is not so usually accomplished. 

You can risk striving to preserve some of these warmer temperature plants outdoors via the winter, she mentioned, whilst other individuals you just cannot. 

“Due to the modifying climate, crape myrtles, some versions of hardy gardenia, camellias, edgeworthias, bananas and other option southern vegetation may possibly now endure our winters,” she stated. “Cannas, elephant ears and angel trumpet trees can be brought into the garage or basement to overwinter immediately after many purposes of insecticidal cleaning soap. Other tropicals can be potted to appreciate inside of in the course of the gray months, when color and the fragrance of summer months are in shorter source.”

Galka has been a lifelong gardener given that developing up with her mom and dad and grandmother at her childhood home in Connecticut. 

“The passion runs deep,” Galka mentioned. “I grew up gardening via my previously life, and then afterwards at dwelling with my little ones and in volunteer actions. My moms and dads ended up incredible gardeners, and my grandmother, who handed absent two a long time in the past, was gardening till she was 97.”

When Galka and her spouse and children moved from Chicago to Philadelphia in 1996, she had no intention of commencing her individual corporation. 

“When my kids have been previous sufficient, I considered to get started a nursery of rare plants, and a pal of mine in this article held a reception wherever a ‘friend of a friend’ of ours came,” she stated. “They questioned if I could potentially landscape their house, and I stated of training course, and that’s how it started. Word-of-mouth did the rest.”

Some nearby tasks that Galka’s company has managed for many years involve the Chestnut Hill Hotel and Market place at the Fareway, where by her eye-catching models received a Philadelphia Horticultural Modern society award for their splendor. 

1 unnamed Chestnut Hill Hotel visitor is quoted on their web page as indicating, “Your gardens (in close proximity to the lodge) are pretty, obviously the outcome of terrific attempts and imagined. You have a wonderful gift. Thanks for sharing it with all of us.”

In accordance to Galka, “It allows that Ron Pete (operator of the Chestnut Hill Resort and Current market at the Fareway) is the ideal particular person to perform with. His vision was to have a place that would bring men and women alongside one another, and it has develop into a vibrant community meeting area.”

Over and above developing backyard strategies from scratch, Galka is generally essential to solve long-standing problems in other more mature qualities. 

“One of our consumers had a incredibly tough backyard in phrases of drainage,” she claimed. “It drained to the center from all other details of the yard, so we labored on grading and building rain gardens to gather the drinking water and producing it into a wonderful woodland backyard garden.”

Galka claimed that some pandemic-linked challenges remain in her business, but other folks have improved appreciably. 

“Supply chain challenges with getting plant components have enhanced tremendously,” she reported, “It is still really difficult to use workers people. I am fortunate since even even though I have a more compact crew, they are actually terrific staff. 

“But the best issue about this business is building prolonged-term interactions with our customers,” she explained. “There is such a pleasure in shepherding these outside styles.” 

Sam Frost contributed to this report. For extra info, visit  philadelphiaoutdoors.com. Len Lear can be reached at [email protected].