Good morning from the garden!

We’re not in my garden this morning, instead I’m sharing the Munsinger and Clemens Gardens in St. Cloud, MN.

These are two distinctly separate gardens that are across the street from one another.

The Munsinger Gardens are shady, informal gardens located right on the bank of the Mississippi River.

These gardens are filled with some lovely examples of things you can grow in the shade like hostas, coleus, begonias …

and that trendy favorite from last year, Sun King Aralia (or Golden Japanese Spikenard).

They also have a fairy garden in a wheelbarrow (sounds familiar!).

The Munsinger Gardens were created in the 1930’s using labor from the WPA.

As you may have already noticed by these photos, it was raining the day my sister, niece and I drove up to St. Cloud.

It was also super buggy.  All of the rain we’ve been having has meant bumper crops of mosquitoes.

Fortunately we were armed with umbrellas (after a quick stop at Target because I forgot mine) and bug spray.  Plus, I happen to think that most gardens look prettier in the rain than they do in blinding sunshine (lucky thing since we also visited de Hortus in Amsterdam in the rain!).

Across the street from the Munsinger Gardens are the Clemens Gardens.

These gardens were developed in the 1990’s by Bill Clemens in honor of his wife, Virginia.

They are much more formal and include some really beautiful fountains like the Renaissance Fountain with Cranes …

and the Windsor Court Fountain.

There are also some gorgeous examples of ironwork including some lovely benches …

and a beautiful arbor.

The quadrants surrounding the arbor are each devoted to a monochromatic scheme.

There is a yellow garden.

Although I’ve never been a big fan of yellow flowers, I defer back to my motto, never say never.  Lately I’ve been really enjoying the yellow in my garden starting with yellow daffodils in spring, then my yellow bearded iris, followed by evening primrose.  I even added a yellow Baptisia this year.

But that being said, I’m still not sure I like a monochromatic yellow garden.  To me it just looks a little bit sickly.

The red garden was full of Astilbe while we were visiting.

Unfortunately I somehow managed to miss getting photos of the blue and the purple quadrants, aside from this photo of the gorgeous variegated foliage on what I am guessing is an iris.

There is also a formal rose garden, and all of the roses are labeled.

  So if you’re into roses, you can pick out some that you want to try in your own garden.

If I grew roses, I’d be tempted by this one called Pop Art.

But the Japanese beetles in our area make a mess of roses, so I’ve mostly quit growing them.  I have one shrub rose left and that’s it.

I do prefer the look of a slightly wild, less formal shrub rose in the garden also.

Unfortunately, aside from the roses, I didn’t see many other plants with identification tags.  So I can’t tell you what variety of clematis this is …

but it sure was pretty.

As were the delphiniums that were in full bloom.

It may have been rainy, but it was still fun to visit both of these gardens.

Do you have any fabulous gardens near you that are worth a visit?  If so, leave a comment and let me know.  I’d love to hear about them.