Smoke Signals

I prefer the view without the rubbish pile as a focal point.

But there are a lot of sticks in the forest.

And you have to empty the vacuum bag every once in a while.

Ophiopogon in bloom.

A regularly used firepit grows naturally into a volcano.

Smoke signals and road thunder

The Rider On The Lawn

With 'Lemon Drop'

Aralia racemosa

Aesculus parviflora

It is an actual zoo out there.

The Buddha got planted.

The Buddha will winter inside.

The Dragon Has Been Planted

The creation of this bed was a long drawn out affair. It dragged on for over a year. Maybe longer.
First there was a want for a circular drive. Rocks were mentioned. Then it was felt a berm should be added. One day a pile of rocks appeared. Two years of wet, the front lawn got mauled and suddenly a ditch was born. Next came a pile of dirt. All the ingredients had finally assembled.

Make it pretty they said.

The Dragon has been planted.
Cephlotaxus harringtonia 'Prostrata' in front
'Brilliance' Autumn Fern in back.

Once upon a time....

It was the bones that remained.

The Turdbox man is on his way.

A Trip To The Roadside

You are on your own. Click on a picture for the slide show.
And Wander.

Some Flowers

I bought a daylily last year.

I bought 'Lemon Drop', a deciduous azalea a decade ago.

Liatris corms fall out of the ground by the sack full. Now they self sow.

The junk? Well what can I say?

Meditation On The Basement Patio

Button is almost ready for his after dinner nap. He was nodding off. It's just hard to leave all those varmints alone.

The nap won out. He came in to bed.

Portulaca in a pot. I make every effort to have potted plants that don't need regular watering. Who has the time for that?

In the land where the chicory blooms.

In The Time Of Vegetation

The dry spell ended and the wet has returned in abundance.

It is a Lush green world out there, growing and growing some more.

While wandering doing some half hearted editing; there comes a point of why bother, much to my shock I discovered a seedling white flowered Spirea japonica.

How dare you. I spent weeks with my plant dealer trying to track down a quantity of the white Spirea japonica 'Conspiyet' for the Wedding Cake Garden. The Yeti™ it turns out was a myth.

Of five blooming stems, one had a few remnant pink flowers. How special. I should just propagate my own™. This spirea will be given a skylight and some elbow room for sure.

Out there in the Lush you never know what you might find.

Some places stay dry in the wet.

The wet pounded today. Culvert Falls roared like never before scouring the earth until the garden calmed it down.

The waters rose up yet again.

All the way to the firepit bindi for the second time this year. I am beginning to wonder. What forces are driving this change? Has my neighbor across the byway done anything to alter the flows above? Is this going to be the new normal?

The garden grows on no matter. Aralia cordata 'Sun King' stands unfazed, directly in the path of the flow.

Baby Gardens

At the end of spring number two, a garden planted quite late in the year, early winter of 2017, is showing signs of more robust growth. In this climate you have to wait a full year or two for that kind of stirring.

The good news is I have found the majority of clients love their gardens the most during the baby years. When things really start to grow and the plants begin to touch each other, the thrill of it all begins to dissipate. Panic can set in.

I think a lot of people like showy expanses of mulch. This garden was planted with a number of groundcovers as a dominant element that will eventually fill in completely and eliminate the need for mulch entirely. Kind of like an abstract quilt. That is the plan anyway.

The majority of shrubs are smaller dwarf forms. That will slow things down a bit. The baby phase should last a bit longer. This was also a big attempt to keep a garden as low maintenance as possible.

The Japanese Maple is the only thing that remains from the original landscape.

Eventually the AC unit and backup generator will be hidden from the curb appeal view.

Elsewhere, a new roadside bed is taking shape. Two years of wet and a mega wet spring revealed all kinds of drainage issues in long ignored pipes all over the county. A clogged buried culvert was replaced with an open rip rap ditch. This road is a mishmash of buried culverts and open ditch.

The long talked about berm for the new circular drive is advancing into reality. I was given a pile of dirt and a load of rocks. Make it pretty they said.

Do those rocks look familiar?

Today 'Brilliance' Autumn Fern was planted on the backside.

I'm waiting for my plant dealer to get me some Cephalotaxus harringtonia 'Prostrata', Spreading Japanese Plum Yew for the front side.

They call it Stonehenge. That is not what I see.