The Cotoneaster dammeri 'Streib's Findling' I planted on a very steep slope below the garden access road is really filling in. I started with three one gallon pots and have been spreading it out further with rooted stem cuttings I take from the main plants.
Even though I weeded it once or twice during the season of vegetation, this completely flat groundcover can still get a bit lost in the Lush. It is evergreen and something to look at in the barren time so I cleaned up around it and raked the leaves off of the top.
What I want to eventually end up with is this cotoneaster completely covering the slope with Joe Pye Weed and several hibiscus coming up through it.
Directly below are the Yucca filamentosa. I planted Creeping Raspberry, Rubus calycinoides as a groundcover for this lower section of the slope. A path separates the two sections. I moved the Creeping Raspberry this year to this spot. I hope once they settle in they will perform as well as the cotoneaster.
Then I got ambitious. It is much easier to study the future bone structure of the garden becoming from the vantage point of my front porch during the barren time. I decided I needed another clump of bamboo for flow and repetition.
The diagnosis is calling for rain, cool temps and some mild freezes for the foreseeable future. There is no snow or winter blasts on the horizon. This is the perfect kind weathers for transplanting things, even if it is December. So I stuck a shovel in a clump of bamboo and dug out another plant.
Fargesia rufa is an evergreen, very cold hardy, to zone 5, clumping bamboo to 10 feet tall. I suppose that is tall enough. I wouldn't mind one of the Fargesia bamboos in the 12 to 15 foot range. I'll mostly be seeing it closer to ground level though. I can use it to create scenes like this.
I stole a bunch of rooted rhododendron stem cuttings from the ridge top garden this spring. It is a very good sign that they have survived the growing season.
I might actually have a cultivated garden one day, a garden where the cultivated wins out and the Lush laps at the edges and mingles a bit in the middle. It's nice to tell myself that anyway.
It's also easier to tell myself that in the barren time when the future bone structure begins to stand out. At the height of the Lush it's a whole other feeling.
Posts
4 comments:
It's looking good even tho it's in the down stage. I guess it's a good time to put bulbs back into the soil. Some buttercups were accidentally dug up today while weeding the rose garden. We'll see.
Of course you will have a great garden. It is coming to the fore as we watch.
I fall in love all over again with the cozy cottage whenever I see that photo; what color sense you have. As for the lush, you now have your summer garden and your winter garden. There is something to be said for not seeing the 'bones' in the summertime. (Or I am a good excuse-maker!)
bev
Lola you can plant bulbs up here until the ground freezes. I should keep an eye on the Lowes display for when they have the discard sale.
Lisa it is coming, as fast as a poor peasant gardener can divide, pilfer stem cuttings and seed things.
Bev I had that thought too, a winter garden and a summer garden, two gardens in one. I assume however time will make the bones more apparent even in summer.
Post a Comment