May 2015 Garden update

The butterfly garden is coming along. The Montauk daisy, peony and sedum are growing fast. These three were here when we bought the house 18 years ago.  One of the butterfly bushes looks good, the other two are not looking great. The crepe myrtle planted last fall shows no signs of life yet, but it may not until June.  I planted Allium bulbs in the fall, and they are spectacular!



Compare this to last month!
   

Front Garden - The bubble gum redbud was beautiful, but skinny. It looks like a single trunk, and I look forward to seeing it mature and spread out.

I continued to move daphodils and a friend gave me a bunch of daylilly's from his garden. I used his plants to fill in holes in my daylilly's patch then realized this probably wasn't a great idea since he may have a different variety than I do and it will look crazy and haphazard.  We shall see.

Hosta/Azaela Garden - I planted a bunch of mail order hosta roots. I've never seen plants arrive in this format and they are now starting to pop up.




This Hosta/Azalea garden is new this year, mostly because I needed a place to transplant hosts and azaleas. I am trying to make the ivy fill in the gaps. I added the poccahantas lilac for some early spring color, and I really love it.

The new square foot garden is underway. I had a small 4x4 plot last year that got eaten by slugs, so we shall see how this one does.


I've had a blast building this trellis. I didn't have a blast digging the holes for the posts - after going at it with a post differ, I hit some roots and ended up renting an auger. Which became stuck and required us to dig a huge 4ft deep hole in the roots to remove it. Not fun.   The trellis still needs a top and some flowers in the pots. I can't wait until the Princess blooms - the Princess Diana clematis that is.

The front green garden will get some attention soon.  I'm not sure what is going in here, but it will be green or silver.

Butterfly Garden Update - April 2015

Main / Butterfly Garden

This garden was a mess when we moved here and I have slowly been figuring out what works in this space. It is the sunniest spot in the yard. There are lots of bulbs planted which appear haphazardly. There were two trees but they both have been replaced, by a crabapple tree several years ago and a crepe myrtle last year. There is a peony, seedum autumn joy and a Montauk daisy as well as daffodils and day Lilly's all thriving after 17 years.  I've added a hosta that was divided years ago and it is also now getting too big. There are light green spider grass plants and some black mondo grass that I love, both planted two years ago.

Moving Bulbs:

I spent this weekend moving spent daffodil bulbs to a more central less random location. I hope they adjust. This is a hard thing to do mentally because the flowers are so pretty blooming, it is hard to dig them up and risk traumatizing them, but if they don't make it, that will leave room for other things.  There are several other new bulb growths I want to move, but they haven't bloomed so I don't know what they are. Hopefully they will be happy surprises!

Weed barrier nightmare:

Last fall I put down weed barrier, and there are some daffodil a that popped right through and some that didn't. I ended up cutting away this weed barrier in several places, and the daffodils underneath aren't very happy, they are downright sad and yellow. I hope they can get enough sun to recoup themselves.


 

No signs of life yet:

A few years ago I planted three butterfly bushes. Last year one didn't make it and I replaced it. There is no signs of life yet. There is Indian grass that is still dormant. The crepe myrtle planted last year hasn't shown any growth yet, this winter was rough on my fall planting season, I hope this tree makes it.  There are some Allium bulbs I planted last fall starting to grow, I can't wait to see them!

Future thoughts:

I'm pretty happy with this garden as it is now.  I may fill in some of the daylillies because I have some big holes in the bed.  Please feel free to comment on any ideas you have for this garden area.