Cherry’s August Garden – Fine Gardening

Happy Friday GPODers!

We’re ending the week with an update from frequent GPOD contributor, Cherry Ong. Cherry sends us so many fabulous photos of her travels to gardens across Canada and the Pacific Northwest (GPOD on the Road: Old Montreal, Bellevue Botanical Garden, Hatley Castle, Niagara-on-the-Lake, and Tofino Botanical Gardens to name a few). But she does occasionally share photos from her own beautiful garden in Richmond, British Columbia (October in Cherry’s Garden, Late Winter and Early Spring in Cherry’s Garden, Wreath Making with Cherry). Today we get to see how her space has evolved over the past year (Cherry’s Summer That Was) and what it looked like as it closed out summer.

Hope you’re having a wonderful week! Thought I would share some photos of my own garden. This set reflects August. I hope you and your readers enjoy them.

Wishing you all a happy Halloween!

Cherry Ong
Perennially Crazy
Richmond, BC Canada

My little perennial backyard garden. All DIY in 2008. Hard to believe this was all grass back then. The east portion of the walkway was removed 2 years ago to make way for a small greenhouse.

Love abutilons and I’m always up to try a new one. This white one is smaller than the others I’ve tried and is called ‘Albus’ abutilon (Abutilon x Hybridum ‘Albus’, Zones 8–11).

A closeup of the blooms of ‘Albus’ abutilon.

Another view of the backyard from the gate. Many original plantings from 2008 remain.

Our little glass greenhouse on the east side of the garden. It measures 6 feet x 8 feet with single pane glass on aluminum frame (Halls Supreme). We picked up this beauty from Russell Nursery in Vancouver Island after being on the waitlist for 2 years.

I have much fun planting succulent hanging planters every spring.

They’re taken apart at the end of the season and I save as many plants as I can.

There are three Japanese maples in our backyard – the two here are ‘Beni Otake’ and ‘Ukigumo’ (Acer Palmatum ‘Beni Otake’ and ‘Ukigumo’, Zones 5–9). ‘Ukigumo’ is the one to the right and behind the vintage birdhouse.

Don’t you love old containers that are falling apart! I use them to fill the gaps of perennials that have gone into early dormancy.

Thank you so much for this beautiful update on your garden, Cherry! Your incredible succulent combinations never cease to amaze and inspire me.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend! As the year, and many of our gardens, begins to wind down, it’s a great time to reflect on the growing season and go over photos we’ve taken through the seasons. If you’re looking back on summer, consider sharing your photos with GPOD! Follow the directions below to submit, or send me a DM on Instagram: @agirlherdogandtheroad

Have a garden you’d like to share?

Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!

To submit, send 5-10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.

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