Well, I suppose I'll just have to take my knitting out and sit with the dogs while they play.
Here are some new pictures of the garden. I just love April and May in the garden--everything looks so fresh and enthusiastic, and I'm always finding stuff that's either seeded itself or that I forgot about planting. *lol* Or sometimes something comes up that I thought had died.
A friend and I were talking about sweet woodruff. Here's my patch. It's spreading like an in-coming tide, but since it happens to be very pretty both in and out of bloom and since it smells delicious, at the moment I don't mind. I'm trying to decide what to plant in the ring at the base of the tree there on the left. Maybe a daylily--the German irises are industriously choking the life out of a clump in the bed by the driveway; maybe it would do all right here instead.
I guess I can straighten out the trellis on the garage, can't I? The sweet woodruff is on the left here, and there are astilbes planted at the foot of the trellis, and asiatic lilies and heuchera (v. Plum Pudding, I think) in the green box against the garage. At the bottom right are a couple of biggish hostas, and the little tree-thingy is my pruned-to-a-standard rose-of-sharon bush--which also likes to seed itself around, but I'm not so tolerate about that!
This is that same area, from the other side. Down there at the bottom are alchemilla (lady's mantle), daffodil foliage, a fat box bush, a couple of clumps of daylilies, and the warm glow of heuchera Caramel. It's very pretty, and I'd like to make a planting of mixed heucheras--Peach Flambe, Georgia Peach, Obsidian (dark purple/maroon), Caramel, and Key Lime Pie (bright lime green, not surprisingly). You can see how big those hostas are. I'm torn between letting them prosper and look luxuriant, or digging them up, separating them into two or three clumps each, and moving them out front to help fill in. I think it's time to order another 25 mixed hostas from Gilbert H. Wild (just $35). I need to put something in down there to fill in when the daffodils die back.
This is part of the back-door shade garden, and despite it needing some more verticality, I'm just tickled pink with it. It's just stuffed with things: two kinds of hosta, two varieties of brunnera (the clumps of silver leaves; they also have beautiful little bright blue flowers), a peony, a couple of stalks of Oriental lilies which I don't expect to bloom but were a wonderful surprise, ferns, vinca, columbine, European ginger, and daffodil foliage.
This is from the other direction; you can really see the brunnera shine here. Also visible in this picture are astilbe and lilies of the valley, and I believe there's some dwarf goatsbeard in there somewhere. The giant hosta is behind the tree; the leaves are still unfurling. I'd like to plant some soft blue pansies there along the bare ground along the curve of the brick edging, even though this is supposed to be a white/silver/green garden. It also has a lot of blue in it--the vinca, columbines, and brunnera all bloom blue.
This is just to show you how the European ginger is spreading. All the low, shiny, round leaves are the ginger. It started out as 3 little clumps over by the angel. There are now little clumps of it in the yard on the other side of the sidewalk and headed north toward the garage! I think I might move some into some bare spots out front, see if it might take there.
I just think this is pretty.
2 comments:
Everything looks so lush! The plants are great, and I love your plant combinations.
Does the silver-leaved brunnera divide easily :-)
Thank you! It is a good year for the garden.
Erm--maybe next year for the brunnera. This is only its third year and at the moment it's fighting for space with the European ginger. I want to see how it does once it gets some space--you know the perennial motto: "First year sleep; 2nd year creep; 3rd year leap!"
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