Garden Journal

Took some photos this morning, wanting to record how things look before the HEAT hits for real.

This very rectangular gardening spot was here when we moved in 7 years ago. Now, I'm all for straight lines, but they really don't lend themselves well to flower gardening. So, I struggle with the angularity of it all every year.

The first photo is of one end of the border. There's red creeping verbena, coreopsis (I've had great success cut-and-pasting this all over the place), lambs ear (ditto), and pansies (which will be pulled out shortly with this heat). There's also some candytuft in there, a galliardia plant, a pink coreopsis (forget the exact name), a large (very happy) yarrow -- the silver foliage kind with pale yellow flowers -- and a mullein towards the back. In addition there are several bulbs which aren't doing much since they came up in January (temps were high) and then got frozen in April. One or two ixia are blooming. (They are the fuschia bit towards the back.) They are pretty but don't have much impact all by their lonesome, so I think I might move them around and clump them up a bit more.

Second photo: more lambs ear, a yellow day-lily ("Stella d'Oro"?), another yarrow which has peachy flowers, gaura ("Whirling Butterflies", I think), more coreopsis and pansies. Towards the back is a trumpet honeysuckle vine which is coming back after getting completely et by deer last year. There's also a mum (from my friend L) and in the upper left corner is some kind of hyssop (?) which has purple flowers. Oh and there's some garden phlox ("David"). Behind it all are a few asiatic lilies which I've not seen yet since they went in last spring (and then we went to England).

Next: more pansies and lambs ear. Another kind of gaura (white something-or-other, I think) and some pink sundrops. There's also a small hardy geranium in there under the lambs ear and in the back is a very healthy asiatic lily. Behind the sundrops is obedient plant.

Last is more lambs ear, pansies and some creeping phlox (oh, there are several more creeping phlox plants in the other pics but I forgot about them!). Plus a bunch of black-eyed susans and some coneflower which you can't see. The funky bit there is a spiderwort and behind that is the trumpet honeysuckle vine. There are some foxgloves back there too.

I hope it all hangs in there once summer arrives in all of its heat & humidity.