Perennials – Page 37 – Ellis Hollow

Remembering 2006 (Part 2)

More pix from last year …

Heuchera and Lysmachia. Renegade Gardener in recent post: Pay attention to leaf and form. Sydney Eddison when I told her I had a lousy eye for color: Here’s a good way to start: If you plant something dark, why don’t you plant something light nearby?

Scotch thistles and bottle tree. (Note to self: Write post praising biennials.)

I used to know the species name of this Euphorbia. This is in September, and the red stems keep it looking good even after the most of the orangish blossoms have faded.

Ironweed and cleome by the driveway.

I often give smallish perennials a year in a container and then transplant them in the fall.

I think I really like Sanguisorba. Didn’t even give it the time of day until reading Oudolf. I think I’ll like it better once I get a decent drift of it going. (I think I’d like the picture better if it were in focus.)

Some of the better performers in what amounts to a bog garden in wet years: Eupatorium, Veronicastrum, turtlehead. The Monarda and Tradescantia is pretty rank in there, but it’s faded away here in September.

Using photos to plan ahead

I was going to do another ‘Remembering 2006’ post, when I ran across this image:

That area is shaping up nicely after a couple years. Eupatorium, Solidago (mostly ‘native’), ornamental grass. There’s also a nice patch of tallish Veronica that flowers in there earlier in the season, and a Molinia ‘Skyracer’ in there that’s still too small to have much impact.

But I noticed that the post and deer fencing is still pretty funky looking. If you look just to the right of the cornerpost, though, you can see an 8-foot-tall Eupatorium that did it’s first season in the vegetable garden. Here it is from the other side:

I think that joepye weed just found it’s home.

Deadheading: What firefly said

Shorter firefly:

… for things that get rained and snowed on, buffeted by wind, tickled by earthworms, munched on by aphids, and pooped on by birds, I’m supposed to tie on my frilly apron (or, judging by the ‘glamour shots,’ perhaps one with fringe and rhinestones), tuck my garden ‘housekeeping’ basket under my arm, and gyrate through the garden “pruning, cutting back, trimming, and, of course, deadheading” so everything sparkles and blooms, even when it’s supposed to be asleep?

Uh, I don’t think so.

Read the rest.

Granted, if I was still on a city lot? I’d probably be pruning, cutting back, trimming, and, of course, deadheading.

I also loved Eric Grissell’s Insects and Gardens, which I’d sum up in rhyme:

Don’t be
So OCD.

Remembering summer 2006 (Part 1)

I rediscovered a bunch of images I’d taken and prepared for blogging last September, but never had time to put them online. The scenes came as quite a shock, now that I’ve gotten used to the snowy landscape. Will try to get the rest of the images — mostly vignettes of favorite plants and combos — over the next few weeks as we countdown to spring.

Click on pix for larger images.

View from the bathroom window, now under that curvy drift in the winter images.

Border and containers.

The container cluster, which is now the container stack in the winter images. Brugmansia, cannas, elephant ears, dahlias.

Expanded water garden, which finally froze over about 3 weeks ago. Hope the fishies are doing OK.

Winter plants

The warm weather we had up until a couple of weeks ago made me appreciate not just the dead plants I cherish so much for dried arrangements, but also those that hung in and stayed green (or some other living shade, like the Heuchera ‘Amber Wave’, right) up until mid-January or later.

Here are some more pix of plants before we got some snow cover.

Cyclamen coum

Lamium and leaves.