annual flowers and foliage to add seasonal color, with untermyer gardens

MAYBE YOU’RE LOOKING for fun new annual flowers for this year’s garden, fresh ideas for adding seasonal color to pots and beds. Whenever I visit a public garden, I see gorgeous plants I don’t recognize and also ones I do sort of, but in some extra-special variety I haven’t seen before, like a gold-leaf Gomphrena or some new shade of black-eyed Susan vine, or perennial sedges used as filler in pots. So how does the horticulturist behind such designs find all these goodies and know how to use them so boldly?

I decided to invite one to the show to find out. Here to help is Head Gardener Timothy Tilghman, of Untermyer Gardens Conservancy in Yonkers, New York, an ambitious restoration of a historic landscape that he’s been undertaking with his team since 2011 and gaining lots of praise in the press and from visitors. (That’s Timothy watering the greenhouse flats of annuals, below.)

Read along as you listen to the Feb. 25, 2019 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

hot annuals, with untermyer gardens’ timothy tilghman

Q. Hi, Timothy. It’s me again.

A. No, it’s always fun to hear from you.

Q. Needing more plant ideas again. We should probably just as an introduction for people who haven’t come visit yet, which they should this season—just a little quick 411 onUntermyer.

A. It’s this amazing space left by Samuel Untermyer, who made his money lawyering. Precocious, he was a member of the bar before he was 20. Went through corporate merger litigation and lawyering, and was rumored to be the first lawyer ever to win a million-dollar fee from a single client. This was in the late 1800s, and he

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