Diana and Keith Cannon

Diana and Keith spent phase one of their lives in their hometown of Carrollton, MO. They married, raised two sons, and Keith completed his first career there. Then, eight years ago, they moved to Kansas City, where Keith started his own business. That's when they began building their garden.

Diana and Keith Cannon

Their first projects included a large circular bed in front and many shade gardens in back. Two spectacular ponds came later, the upper pond in 2004 and the lower one a year later. Both the ponds and a watercourse above them take advantage of a beautiful westward slope in back. Stone patio areas and a pergola at the west end of the ponds were completed this year.

One of the ponds

Adjacent to the patio are the remains of a once-towering cottonwood that came down within the last year. Keith has hollowed out the trunk for a planter.

Diana and Keith designed the gardens and ponds themselves and had the ponds built by Uncommon Grounds. They maintain the gardens themselves with periodic help from their sons when they visit. They carry on the tradition of gardening as a family that goes back to Diana’s grandmother.

Their Top Ten Plants

1. Pink Double Lotus (Roseum plenum): Gorgeous double pink blooms, very fragrant, attract bees -- I love it!

2. Voodoo Plant (Sauuromatum venosum): Purchased several years ago on our first water garden tour. Tubers have no roots, dies back immediately in September as soon as the days start getting shorter. Blooms in February in the garage! Stems look like snake skin. I like it, because it’s weird!

3. Shrub rose ‘Darlow’s Enigma’: Ancestry unknown -- purchased from Heirloom Roses.com. Pure white semi-double blooms open flat to show gold centers, continuous bloomer, can tolerate shade, very sweet honey-like fragrance. I had one before we moved and had to have it again.

Bike in the garden
4. Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia): Purchased years ago. The owner of the nursery, Tom, was in Vietnam, as was my husband, and he visited the Vietnam memorial. He pulled some seeds off of the hydrangea that was there. He grew the seeds, and we got one of the plants. We moved it here, and rabbits chewed branches off, but it’s still special to us.

5. Rose ‘Fairy’: England, Bentall, 1932. Pink sprays all summer, no disease, have had them for many years.

6. Rose ‘Jude the Obscure’: Ausjo PPAF, David Austin English Rose. Large, cupped, old-fashioned looking rose, rich soft apricot. On the 1-10 fragrance scale, it’s a 10!! Smells like lemon/myrrh/peach! Named after the 19th century novel by Thomas Hardy.

7. Hardy Banana (Musa Basjoo): This is its fourth year, and it got to be 12 feet tall last year. We absolutely love it!

8. Plume Poppy (Macleaya): First saw it in Kauffman Gardens, gets huge, finely cut leaves, whitish green fuzz on top and coppery color underneath, and blooms sprays of pale coppery plumes.

9. Annual Poppy (Papaver somniferum, perhaps Laciniatum): Pink double peony-type poppy. Seed was given to me 25 years ago by an elderly woman. I save the seeds and sow them every year with Shirley poppies. Poppies are my favorite flower!

10. Tropical Water Lilly ‘Queen of Siam’: Beautiful green and burgundy lily pads, and blooms are deep pink and very fragrant! Late getting started, but I have photographed it blooming with fallen leaves all around it in the fall.

(Thanks to the Master Gardeners of Greater Kansas City for this information. To see more photos of the Cannon gardens, go to the left rail on the kcgarden page and click on "Missouri Master Gardeners Tour.")