Blog

Click on images for larger view. Plant IDs from memory. (Don’t hold me to them.)

In an email earlier this week, Hank over at Lake County pointed out that I haven’t posted many garden pictures lately, and he was wondering how things looked. Actually, I’ve taken tons of pictures this season. Pictures of plants I wanted to write about. Pictures I wanted to make points about. Most got downloaded, edited and PhotoShopped. But I just haven’t had time to take them any farther.

So last night I did a quick walkaround and took some long shots just to record the peri-solstice garden and refocus a little on the big picture and not the individual plants (and weeds). While I love individual plants, the long shots make me appreciate the overall feel of the place in ways that I sometimes forget when I’m actually in the space.

The upper garden (below). My lame rock garden is in the center of the lawn. Miscanthis floridulus that blocks the road is about half its mature height. Various shrubs in the border are starting to come along. I like the old saw, “The first year they sleep. The second year they creep. The third year they leap.” But between the rabbits and the deer, I have many second years when it comes to shrubs.

Front bed on the north side of the house. Goatsbeard (Aruncus) along the fence by the driveway. (Wild grape and clematis winds through it.) White valerian flowers float above. Big swath of yellow from evening primrose. Spirea flowers provide a little purple.

Did I make these curves by design (below, left). Maybe. Blind sow gets an acorn every now and then. Alchemilla and lysimachia provide yellows to right of walk. Grays are lambsears (foreground) and artemisia (background). Plume poppy provides bulk behind porch with autumn clematis climbing pole. Adjacent green mass is a tangle of mint and wild asters. I can’t take credit for the borrowed scenery of marsh and woods in the back. This one is really worth clicking on to appreciate. Pergola (right) with bittersweet, spirea (foreground) and Persicaria (background).

Blue bottle bed featuring scotch thistle, burdock, ornamental grasses, verbascum, phlomis, lots more.

The dry bed. Artemisia, verbascums, alliums (some flowering, some old), lots of cacti and succuents — hardy and tender — in pots and troughs.

Veggie garden (yeah, I use a lot of garlic) and water garden (needs some work).

The wet garden. Low spot stays wet most summers. Tradescantia, lysimachia, filipendula, turtlehead, willows, hibiscus, monarda, veronicastrum. It’s pretty plain now, especially since the tradescantia closes up in the evening. But this will be the most spectacular part of the garden before long.

My goal is that someday my garden will look as good as the borrowed scenery I have as a backdrop.