I'm talking to my friend Mary Vargo who is the
horticulture agent in Greenville. And Mary, you
told me that you had an internship, where in France?
Claude Monet House and Foundation.
Yeah, I Yeah,
Did it have any influence on your ideas
about color and mixing plants?
Absolutely. I've always been obsessed with his
work because it's so you know, it's that
impressionism, the mix of those colors. And so being an
intern there and being able to experience that
and just seeing his world and seeing other people's
reactions to his garden was so inspiring. So I've
always just aim to recreate that back home.
So I just grow a mix of colors and textures and
forms. And it just kind of transports me back there.
As if I was still there. I'd love to go back. But yeah,
I just, always try to grow something new every year.
And in South Carolina, There's always something
that'll be blooming.
Absolutely.
So, I mean, it's it's right now I've got a
bunch of red corn poppies coming up. So my garden
looks very red at this, at this point, bunch of reds
scarlet beebalm coming up, and then it kind of
transitions into more summer and all my rudbeckia
is just taking over and you know that stuff
recedes like crazy. It's like a swarm of yellow in
the garden. So it's really fun to see it transition
from spring, summer, fall and see the colors kind of
mix into each other. So, yeah.
Well, let's talk about some of the your favorites.
Yeah, absolutely.
Right now what I love and I'd love to see
more people grow is nigella. Nigella sativa
there's that Miss Jekyll mix which is like a
fun blue, whites, purple pinks and it's just such a
fun flower. It's got, it's got a really cool look to
it. It's in the carrot family. So it looks pretty
similar to the to the foliage you'd see on Queen
Anne's lace. So that's a fun and it's a blue color.
So that's pretty uncommon.
So that's one of my favorites to grow really early
spring bloom, and it recedes like crazy too.
And the seed pods, you can dry them. So they look
great. You can, yeah, you can use the fresh flowers
in the spring and then save the seed heads to use
for crafts or
decorative accents in your home.
Seed heads so beautiful.
Absolutely. Yeah, so poppies too. I love
puppies. I let my puppies receive quite a bit in my
garden. So and I let them kind of just where they
want to live. They live there in my garden. So got
those red ones. I've got some Hungarian, blue
poppies. Bred seed poppies, California
poppies are blooming right now that I really love.
Bright orange.
Just effortless.
Oh god, they're just so graceful
too. I love kind of setting them on an edge of
a bed and letting them kind of spill over because
they're pretty. They'll they'll get long on them.
But I think they look really nice when they're
at an edge of a border. So those are really fun right now.
You don't believe in staying in the lines.
No, it's chaos and disorder. Always in my garden.
But I...
Well how about midsummer?
So yeah, midsummer, I have
things like dahlias are kind of coming up there.
They're kind of towards the end of summer
blooming. So I've quite a bit of dahlias coming up.
I grew one last year called Totally Tangerine.
And that one I think is like my favorite Dahlia
that I've that I've ever grown. It's, the color on
it is just perfect. So that's always fun. Amaranth,
I love amaranth. It gets really tall and you can
eat the seeds and they're really good for you too.
I'll harvest the big plumy seed heads and do
something fun with them. They also look great dried, but
then they create so many seeds. So I have like
little baby amaranth everywhere in my garden.
Celosia, got some fun little feather flamingo looking
ones. Those are really fun. Orlaya, have you
ever heard of that plant?
I don't know that one.
It's sort of a frilly, white. It looks kind of similar
to Queen Anne's lace. But it's, it doesn't spread as
aggressively as Queen Anne's lace so if you if
you like that look of Queen Anne's lace, but you
don't want it to take over your entire yard. Maybe go with
orlaya. It's it's a gorgeous look and great
cut flower too. But yeah, beebalm, butcher mountain
mint, got several species growing in my garden.
So your, so your also just
pollinators are everywhere.
Oh, absolutely.
And you know, I've never been stung one
time by a bee. Everybody's always so scared to step
foot in this massive jungle flowers in my
backyard. And they're scared of bees. But you
know, I let them do their thing. They let me do my
thing. And we're all just happy existing together.
Yeah, it's so much fun. I love having color and
texture to play with. Because I like to make cut
flower arrangement.
I know you do.
So the more materials
I have, the better for me, I can create something. So
every year I just start tons of seeds. And I
really try to look for, when I, when I'm ordering
my seeds for the year, I'm looking for colors that
are kind of in the same palette or family. I like
complementary colors like monochromatic colors.
So I look for, I'm really into like peachy shades or
more muted tones. I like bright colors. But I kind
of tend to the more muted more natural sort of
colors like that. So when I'm making arrangements, I
just try to make it as interesting as possible. I
get easily bored by one or two things and I can
respect simplicity in a bouquet or arrangement,
But I just want to, I want to people to stop and
stare and look at it for a minute
and look at all the different features
Well and some of the ones that we're looking at
as we're talking. We see that
that's in them.
Yeah, people are always telling me that
it's very wild looking and I take that as a
compliment because I don't want it to look so
structured. It should mimic nature. I think
you've achieved I've achieved what I was going
for if I get that compliment. So yeah, the
more I grow, the better the work looks
So your challenge now is a new puppy who has
to be taught that there, cuz your, your older dog
knows that he's not supposed to go into the garden.
So you came home
from the flea market with a new puppy.
With a new puppy, who came for plants.
You're gonna have to use your big girl voice.
I know. I get on my alpha voice
but yeah, she's she's just so cute. She gets a break
when she tumbles through the garden and break stems.
Well, and the way your garden is...
It doesn't matter. no, she, she's snapping
things off. It's okay because things are getting
yanked out and stuff is put back in. So yeah, she'll learn.
Okay. Well, Mary, thank you so much.
I want to come see you in person.
Yeah, you should. come on over.
We'll make a plan.