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.