The Garden Tour, Beds 1 & 2

Hubby, the brood and I moved to this house in November of 1997. Thanks to accommodating friends and their hefty trailer, a shamefully large number of plants came with us. My garden was born [out of dandelion-infested sprawl] the following February. I say this to all of you who have newer gardens and wonder whether yours will ever fill in and be the garden of your dreams. Unless your wallet rivals Bill Gates' [or God's] then patience will be required. But as they say, there is joy in the journey.

Okay. So here we are at the north end of the path that delineates beds 1 and 2. I developed this area as an afterthought/remedy to a failed attempt at 'Fall Gold' Raspberries. I should have known. The fence [now hidden by the plants on the left side of your screen] took the afternoon sun and raised it to deathly degrees. And to make matters worse my hose didn't reach. Now, the raspberries are re-situated and I have a better strategy for my hoses. But it still gets hotter than Hades in this area.

Four or five steps down the path, the purple spikes of Teucrium hycranicum 'Purple Trails' [You'd think it would be "tails" but apparently not] charms the resident bee population. Two years ago during a nursery outing I saw it, had to have it and that's all there was to it. And I'm thrilled to death with its continuous summer performance. It deserves a place in every dry, sunny border.

A bit farther, this photo was taken in 2008. Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' on the left above a fabulously chartreuse carpet of Sedum rupestre 'Angelina' and a doable color-echo Sedum alboroseum 'Mediovariegatum' on the right. The dang Gaura got a little too tall and had to be corralled.

This photo is also from 2008. I'm looking back from where I just came. The pink Penstemon took a major hit the following winter and very little of it was left last summer. Errant sprigs of blood-enducing Berberis thunbergii 'Rosy Glow' pop up in the foreground. In the background, the tall plant with the curvy, down-turned foliage is the aforementioned Seven-Son, not quite in bloom yet.

Do you see the mirror? It's supposed to fool you into thinking the garden is bigger than it really is. Last spring it fooled a bird into thinking it was more beguiling than it really is. [Sound familiar, Darla?] Lespedeza thunbergii with its cascading purple pea-like flowers is next to it. 'Alma Potschke' Aster is the pink flower on the left--part of the late-summer ensemble.

Phlox paniculata, Echinacea cvs. and Monarda didyma 'Raspberry Wine' stand out as we look backward along the path. Catherine pointed out how close together my plants are and she's right. There are several reasons for this, the main one being I'm a plant hoarder and have to squeeze them all into limited soil.

And the final photo is taken as I step backwards onto my north lawn. On the right is a dwarf Zebra Grass, Miscanthus sinensis 'Strictus.' On the left, next to the whiskey barrel is the deep green of Euonymous japonica 'Microphylla.' Without fail, this plant takes a hit when the temperatures dip into the teens. Tip die-back is a given but last year I lost a whole row of them. The plant you're looking at was the only one worth salvaging.

No guarantees in the garden. [Hey, a good title for a book.] Yes, the garden is always in flux. More to come.