Most people have gardens that are visually appealing some of the time.

Fewer achieve excitement by the way they select and place their plants.

But Cecilia Clanton settles for nothing less than exuberance in her 3.5 acre garden in DeSoto County, Mississippi, just outside of Memphis.

She does it with sweeps of color created by mass plantings in beds that outline and define various areas of the garden.

Rudbeckias now have the stage, nudging out the fiery red crocasmias that bloomed just before them.

The crocasmias stole the show from daylilies, baptisias and late blooming Asiatic lilies.

After the rudbeckias, Clanton is counting on zinnias to take her into fall and pansy planting

"I plant zinnia seeds late in May so they will come in at the end of summer and bloom until frost," Clanton said. "You cannot believe the butterflies that come to the garden."

In other areas she plants masses of Knock-Out roses, carpet roses, peonies and a few climbing roses, including her favorite Cecile Brunner.

In shady areas hundreds of hydrangeas, both mopheads and oakleafs, take the spotlight.

Numerous miscanthus plants along with a mass of a smaller ornamental grass with solid green foliage form fountains of billowy foliage in another area.

"The grasses are not unsual," she said. "There are just a lot of them."

In the fall she will divide the grasses and other perennials.

"That's another reason for mass planting -- you get lots of newplant material from dividing," she said.

When she started the garden about 12 years ago, Clanton wrote down some goals.

"The first word that came to mind was exuberance," she said. "I wanted a distinct lack of formality that would make people feel comfortable and get them to thinking of their grandmother's favorite plants. I want people to walk in the garden and be filled with joy, not awe."

Formal gardens are beautiful but most people can never duplicate the look.

"Anyone could go to a large garden center and copy what is here with no problem," she said.

Before buying dozens of plants, Clanton tests them three at a time in a small area. If she thinks it's worthy of a mass planting, she made buy 100 more.

The varieties she chooses are typically readily available in garden centers or through mail-order sources.

She doesn't record the cultivars she plants although she thinks it's a good idea. She does take lots of photos, including those she shared with midsouthgardens.com, and dates them. She also makes notes on whatp plants need to be moved, failures and where to place plants for next year.

Watering well and often is a necessity with so many plants crowded into a bed. She fertilizes with Nursery Special slow release fertilizer in early spring and again in July.

Planting in masses cuts down on weeding.

"Weeding could be overwhelming in a garden this size but the foliages of the plants either hide or shade out most of the weeds," she said

Every spring she has 120 yards --- that's right 120 yards --- of mulch spread thickly into the beds

An additional 3.5 acres on the property have been turned into a wildflower meadow that blooms exuberantly in early spring.

Clanton is the owner of the DeSoto Art Academy where she teaches children after-school and during the summer. She teaches art to adults through Northwest Community College.

She also imports bulbs for a wholesale business and helps her friends with their gardens.

Everyone, she said, can add exuberance with a mass planting somewhere in their garden.

"Even if a plant is not your absolute favorite, if you put in a large sweep of it, it can become your favorite," she said.






See You At Summer Celebration!

More than 500 fans promoting midsouthgardens.com were distributed at Summer Celebration July 13 at the University of Tennessee Research and Education Center in Jackson.

It was HOT! But the tours and indoor programs were extremely informative. I saw a lot of Memphis gardeners and also a group of the pros from the Memphis Botanic Garden. Kyle McLane, Chris Conley, Laurie Williams and Mary Helen Butler were there gathering ideas for future improvements at the botanic garden. Rick Pudwell, director of horticulture at the Memphis Botanic Garden, wowed his audiences with his floral design skills using flowers and foliage from the garden.

Rick makes flower arranging seem like it's the easiest thing in the world.