Cozy Companions

HYDRANGEAS ARE THE SHOWSTOPPERS FOR MANY A SOUTHERN GARDEN.

These beautiful flowering bushes will provide big, clusters of blossoms and verdant foliage all through the summer as long as they are given adequate shade, water, and fertilizer and protected from harsh afternoon sunlight. But even the star of your garden should have a supporting cast. You can enhance visual appeal, provide essential shade, and still keep your hydrangeas in the spotlight by adding companion plants.

If you haven’t planted your hydrangeas yet, you may want to consider placing them near existing trees of small to medium height so they can provide the essential shade for the flowering shrubs. Be careful when considering placement and digging the hole to plant shrubs near existing trees so you don’t nick or damage an existing root system. If your hydrangeas are already established, you may want to plant trees for shade such as dogwoods. Several varieties of dogwood grow to heights of 10-20 feet, just the right size to provide protective shade to neighboring hydrangeas. They also offer pretty blooms, attractive foliage and bark.

Taking the importance of shade into consideration, a wonderful companion plant for hydrangeas is the hosta. With a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors to choose from, hostas share hydrangea’s love of morning sun and afternoon shade, and will thrive under the canopy of hydrangea foliage. The lush foliage of the hosta will serve as green canvas and background for your hydrangeas’ bursting blooms.

Since hydrangeas don’t bloom year-round, you’ll should assortment of other plants that will blossom during the shrub’s dormant months to ensure long-lasting color. A combination and summer flowering annuals that happily soak up the sun, like zinnias and snapdragons, can add more bright and bold colors to catch the eye. You may want to complement your hydrangeas’ blooms by planting flowers with similar hues or choose to create a more varied and vibrant palette with bright contrasting colors.

Ornamental grasses can add an understated elegance to your garden without shifting the focus from the flowering shrubs. These easy to grow grasses generally require little maintenance and subtly enhance the beauty of the flowers without calling attention to themselves. Tall fountain grass is a perfect anchor for the corners of your garden. This sun-lover has showy purple plumes that will sway in the breeze and provide light shade for the hydrangeas. Blue fescue, which has similar sun tolerance to hydrangeas and grows in 4-11” tall bluish-gray tufts makes for perfect edging.

By adding companion plants to your hydrangea garden, you not only enhance its visual appeal, you set the stage for a longer lasting show of beauty. Now, go see Dawn and the always amazing crew at ACE Garden Center and tell them what you need! They are always happy to provide helpful advice and tips of their own based on years of experience with island gardens.

By Andy Parker, Creative Director, Senior Living Communities

St. Simons Island is a work of art with nature’s majestic highlights on display. It’s easy to become immersed in its alluring spell. Tiny in scale, though robust in offerings, this picturesque paradise accentuates every season of life, from habitual family vacationers seeking pristine beaches and lush coastal waterways to long-time residents who found it difficult to say goodbye. Once sampled, St. Simons Island remains a longed-for paradise. It becomes a favorite haunt, woven between weekends and years, winters and summers. Now a closely guarded secret, the island is a destination where visitors often wistfully wish they could live, yearning to stay for days to enjoy its tranquility and delighting in the feast it provides for the senses.

Senior Living at Marsh’s Edge

The similarities between St. Simons Island and Marsh’s Edge don’t end with their shared longitude and latitude. Marsh’s Edge is welldraped in the same beauty as the rest of the island. Its peaceful allure and regal presence are slowly revealed when entering the community as the Southern live oaks draped with Spanish moss open the scene like a center stage curtain.

Marsh’s Edge offers an enjoyable balance of independence, familiarity, and safety that warmly welcomes young-at-heart couples with 30, 40, and 50-year marriages tucked behind each smile and belly laugh to newlyweds who found love later in life. For those who have loved and lost yet still stand lively and adventurous, the community enfolds them into its grand and gracious embrace.

Located on the island near Fort Frederica National Monument, Marsh’s Edge, a continuing care retirement community, provides an astounding array of services and amenities. With Independent Living as a main component, social, wellness, and dining offerings combine to create extravagant days packed with delightful events, classes, and delectable culinary treats. With four cottage home designs and seven villa apartment floor plans, Marsh’s Edge offers a variety of attractive living options.

Cottage homes offer a private oasis with expansive lots, spacious floor plans, and ample room to park a vintage sports car, display lifelong hobby collections, and plant your favorite annuals. The popular Harrington layout approaches 3,000 sq. ft. and offers three large bedrooms with plenty of sunlight through the gable roof window.

The architecturally exciting villa apartments are extremely popular due to the proximity to the clubhouse. Cozy yet sprawling, quiet, and inviting villa apartments are a fusion of comfort and accessibility. They’re available in one and two-bedroom options, with the largest nearing 1,900 sq. ft. Members can escape summer’s salty touch by meandering through the connected hallways. The Satilla villa apartment, named after the Satilla River running through the coastal plains of southeast Georgia, is a two-bedroom delight that offers a balcony, dining room, and large closets.

Adding Spice to Life

Moments in life are often bookmarked by excitement, fear, or happiness. Marsh’s Edge intentionally provides its Members with plenty of happy moments to bookmark. With a daily calendar full of wellness classes and social events spanning a wide array of interests and levels of activity, no day looks the same.

Laughter, lively conversation, and delicious treats fill each month’s Signature Event, which combines all areas of the community’s personality into one giant party. From casual happy hours and sports gatherings to glamorous costume galas and murder mystery dinners, there’s an everpresent buzz of excitement. Membership at Marsh’s Edge is an exclusive ticket to some of the island’s premiere parties.

Marsh’s Edge also hosts special events like the Cars for a Cause Car Show, which showcases over 40 classic automobiles with sleek lines, intimidating engines, and draws plenty of envious admirers. All proceeds from this annual event are donated to the Alzheimer’s Association.

Nourishing Mind and Body

Not only are the social events and dining options at Marsh’s Edge top-notch, the investment in Member health and wellness is apparent. Sprinkled throughout the wellness calendars are aquatic sessions in the indoor heated pool and outdoor tai chi classes near the pond to improve aerobic levels, flexibility, and mobility. Strength and balance classes and the sea turtles that nest on the nearby beaches are some local favorites. With the temperate island climate, Members can regularly challenge their cardio in the solitude and shade of the tucked-away paths beneath the lush tree canopy.

Changing Seasons

As life presents challenges and unexpected detours, the on-site care services at Marsh’s Edge prove to be invaluable resources. The peace of mind in that loved ones don’t have to separate and move hours apart, and adult children needn’t constantly worry about mom and dad allows for more living and less worry. Top-tier care services delivered by certified professionals at Marsh’s Edge include everything from rehabilitation to in-home care, assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing. Transitions through the many seasons of life are celebrated and welcomed here.

round out a full-body approach to maintaining a healthy body. The full-time Wellness Director even customizes fitness routines to meet each Member’s needs.

Trail walking and wildlife spotting are popular as the island’s habitat welcomes some of nature’s most beautiful creatures. Deer, birds,

St. Simons Island is teeming with a unique combination of vibrancy and serenity. With its beautiful beaches, quaint neighborhoods, and premier retirement destination at Marsh’s Edge, it’s the perfect home for all seasons of life. To learn more about Marsh’s Edge or to schedule an appointment with a Lifestyle Advisor, call 912.771.1104 or visit Marshs-Edge.com.

2023 Pantone® Color of the Year

Even the name of Pantone’s 2023 Color of the Year is full of life. Calling it “powerful and empowering,” Pantone describes Viva Magenta (PANTONE 18-1750) as “a new animated red that revels in pure joy, encouraging experimentation and selfexpression without restraint, an electrifying, and a boundaryless shade that is manifesting as a stand-out statement.” It’s for rebellious spirits and lovers of life, a bold and exuberant shade of red rooted in nature.

Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute, says, “In this age of technology, we look to draw inspiration from nature and what is real. PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta descends from the red family, and is inspired by the red of cochineal, one of the most precious dyes belonging to the natural dye family as well as one of the strongest and brightest the world has known.”

Pantone considered a heightened appreciation and awareness of nature seen in countless lifestyle trends during this year’s Color of the Year selection process. They looked at the way people are incorporating more living things into their homes, embracing plants and flowers, living walls, and restorative outdoor spaces. Following the pandemic, there’s also newfound enjoyment in outdoor recreation, sports, and travel. We’re taking special care to protect our bodies by seeking natural, trusted, lifegiving ingredients. With its organic origins coming from the carmine dye produced by the cochineal beetle, the red tone of Viva Magenta connects us to the earth’s primordial essence, invoking the forces of nature, to galvanize our spirit and build our inner strength.

This shade of red is considered a hybrid color that balances both warm and cool tones. It fuses together the richness, warmth, and strength of natural matters and our enchantment with the wide-open horizons of technology and the digital world, encouraging brave new expression. It is dynamic and forward-looking, inclusive and audacious, transformative but not aggressive, embodying both a feeling of fun and fierce grace.

Because Viva Magenta packs a lot of drama in a small dose, it’s a wonderful color to use for bright accents in a neutral room. Florals, light fixtures, pillows and throws, or bold strokes on a canvas can add these bright pops of color. For the more daring, a velvet settee or floor length drapery will breathe life into your space with its vibrant energy. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination—be brave!