Last blooms

Physostegia virginica (false dragonhead), beloved by bees

 

Perovskia (Russian sage)

 

A few zinnias that survived the drought

 

Volunteer morning glory

 

Pansies

 

Woodland aster under the maple tree

 

My new favorite sedum, also beloved by bees

 

Who knows what will be left when we return in a week?

Who is eating my plants??

Eaten to date: two parsley plants, two calendulas, a tithonia, and a whole planting of pole beans. Whoever does it seems to chew the leaves in to the stems. Here's a picture of the pathetic tithonia, standing tall but entirely leafless.

 

As for the beans, here they are young and fresh and full of hope:

 

and here they are today, almost completely gone.

 

Going online is no help because everyone has a different theory. I think it must be bugs. A rabbit would hardly have eaten the beans in the cedar barrel and left the ones in the ground alone. Time to check Barbara Damrosch and see what she says.

Oh, the possibilities

The white dogwood that came with the house has been slowly dying back the last few years, and I finally had it taken out. Of course, the first thing I realized was how nicely it had screened the neighbor's driveway from view - not entirely, but just enough to give us both some privacy. But it also revealed that side of the front lawn as ripe for development!

Here are views from the house looking down toward the street (the weird mess at the top is the Soil Moist), looking up from the street with the neighbor's driveway at left, and up toward the house, with just a few branches of the maple in view at right.

 
 
 

It certainly looks bleak, doesn't it? Apart from the scraggly state of the lawn, I am most aware of the full sun that this side of the lawn enjoys. Many possibilities have been floating through my mind: a set of shrubs, including a lilac just for the flowers; a perennial border of sun lovers to include scads of lilies; a wee little vegetable garden bordered with low shrubs... But of course, the most important consideration is what would actually look good there from a design sense. How to make whatever garden is there flow with the rest of the space? And what garden should be created that will not end up being burdensome to maintain?

And don't forget Mom's advice to keep it low.

More survivors

In addition to the two brunnera that did survive after all, I found more good news poking around the garden. I broke off last year's amsonia stems and found teeny new ones emerging. Balloon flowers are coming up. The baptisia is coming up and looking very healthy. The peony 'Sarah Bernhardt' is growing vigorously through the hoop, and the two unnamed ones from Susan Hepler are coming along, too. Astilbes in the front garden are showing leafy fronds... This dry recital is probably interesting only to me, but I'm heartened that most plants seem to have survived last summer's drought and my imperfect care.

Yesterday I went through the garden marking plants, lest I forget. I love the marking pencils and labels I bought on Dianne Benson's recommendation.

Only the strong survive - updated

The brunnera 'Jack Frost' has barely survived. One of the three is showing the most brilliant blue flowers, which don't come through in this picture



but do in this one. This is what mine should look like, but I guess the drought got the best of it. At least there's one plant alive, and I will nurse it along.


Update: the other two plants have emerged, tiny as premature babies but one has flowers! This picture of one of the tiny flowerets that fell to the ground comes closer to capturing the cheerful blue of these beauties.

The double bloodroot, bought at great expense and with high hopes, is dead as a doornail. Martha promises me some bloodroot from her mother's Georgia garden, which will ease the pain. (Thank you, Martha!)

The hakonochlea in front are showing golden-green fronds on two out of three plants, while the ones along the side of the house appear to be dead. At least they're not too hard to replace.

But most wonderful of all, I can see shoots of the Solomon's seal that was trampled under the feet of the carpenter last summer! Spring is the time of hope.