Garden structure trend provides a touch of the tropics

by Len Lear

This summer, region landscape designers are not just sticking to what’s area. 

Tropicals these kinds of as palms, crotons, cannas, hibiscus and birds of paradise are coming into vogue – possibly as companions to hardier vegetation or for tropical beds on their individual, in accordance to Susan Galka, of Romancing The Backyard garden landscape design and style business in Wyncote.

“They’re a bold and pleasant shock along with the bountiful palette of what will grow in the Philadelphia place,” claimed Galka, who has been serving clients for 27 yrs. “Some a long time in the past, a amazing customer who has since passed away insisted upon banana trees amidst her extra formal plantings.”

While rising tropical vegetation in containers is a definite development, Galka explained, incorporating them into area gardens is not so commonly performed. 

You can risk attempting to maintain some of these warmer weather plants outdoors through the winter season, she reported, while other people you just can’t. 

“Due to the shifting local climate, crape myrtles, some varieties of hardy gardenia, camellias, edgeworthias, bananas and other selection southern plants may now endure our winters,” she mentioned. “Cannas, elephant ears and angel trumpet trees can be brought into the garage or basement to overwinter immediately after quite a few purposes of insecticidal soap. Other tropicals can be potted to get pleasure from within during the grey months, when coloration and the fragrance of summertime are in shorter provide.”

Galka has been a lifelong gardener due to the fact expanding up with her mom and dad and grandmother at her childhood property in Connecticut. 

“The enthusiasm operates deep,” Galka explained. “I grew up gardening by means of my previously lifestyle, and then afterwards at dwelling with my little ones and in volunteer routines. My mom and dad were awesome gardeners, and my grandmother, who passed absent two many years back, was gardening until eventually she was 97.”

When Galka and her loved ones moved from Chicago to Philadelphia in 1996, she had no intention of beginning her own organization. 

“When my little ones were being old plenty of, I believed to commence a nursery of rare crops, and a close friend of mine right here held a reception wherever a ‘friend of a friend’ of ours arrived,” she stated. “They questioned if I could potentially landscape their residence, and I explained of course, and which is how it started. Word-of-mouth did the relaxation.”

Some area tasks that Galka’s company has taken care of for decades incorporate the Chestnut Hill Hotel and Market place at the Fareway, the place her eye-catching styles received a Philadelphia Horticultural Modern society award for their magnificence. 

A single unnamed Chestnut Hill Resort visitor is quoted on their web site as declaring, “Your gardens (near the resort) are beautiful, obviously the result of terrific endeavours and considered. You have a superb reward. Many thanks for sharing it with all of us.”

According to Galka, “It aids that Ron Pete (operator of the Chestnut Hill Resort and Sector at the Fareway) is the most effective human being to get the job done with. His vision was to have a space that would carry folks jointly, and it has turn out to be a lively community assembly space.”

Over and above planning garden tips from scratch, Galka is often required to solve prolonged-standing difficulties in other older qualities. 

“One of our clients experienced a really tough yard in phrases of drainage,” she reported. “It drained to the middle from all other points of the lawn, so we labored on grading and establishing rain gardens to accumulate the h2o and earning it into a wonderful woodland yard.”

Galka explained that some pandemic-connected troubles continue being in her business, but others have enhanced significantly. 

“Supply chain problems with getting plant products have improved greatly,” she reported, “It is continue to extremely challenging to employ the service of staff individuals. I am fortuitous because even nevertheless I have a lesser crew, they are seriously wonderful employees. 

“But the best issue about this business enterprise is making extended-expression associations with our clientele,” she explained. “There is these kinds of a joy in shepherding these outside styles.” 

Sam Frost contributed to this short article. For more facts, visit  philadelphiaoutdoors.com. Len Lear can be reached at [email protected].