I Think Some Plants Took Over My Brain

Warning: This post contains no pictures of my adorable children. It gives no actual update on our family (we're fine, coincidentally--enjoying our summer, even if the unusual amount of rain is making the earwig population skyrocket.) Instead, this post entirely concerns all of the massive amounts of planting, trimming, edging, and general gardening I have been doing over the past few weeks. I am writing this post for the sole enjoyment of about, say, four people who read this blog who actually are interested in just what sort of plants I put in the ground. And who am I to deny these four people?

So. If this sort of stuff bores you, please feel free to skip on over somewhere more exciting. (I suggest Hark! A Vagrant for simple laughs.) I assure you, I do not deviate from regular scheduled plant-talk.

Here goes!

First off, let's start in the back, on the east side of our detached garage. This is the view of the garage from the house/back yard:

It gets lots of shade, thus all the lovely lily of the valley. I share this with you because, just a couple days ago, I worked my bottom off for over two hours weeding this plot, as well as bringing the edge of the flower bed out a few inches and edging it very, very precisely and carefully. I am proud of this work. Thanks, Mrs. Dorothy, for doing something right and leaving me these lovely plants.

Right across the sidewalk from the garage is a plot of dirt that has been there since my parents moved out two years ago. They had set their dogs' kennel in this patch underneath a large locust tree, and we prevented them from planting grass seed after they moved the kennel, intending to make this a shade garden. FINALLY we're on our way to doing just that:

You have to use your imagination some with this one, since it's still pretty rough. We've planted a few varieties of hosta (all donations from some friends and my aunt) all around the edge, as well as some autumn sedum, some coral bells (see the two reddish plants?), and some native Illinois ferns (in the middle-back, on the berm part of the plot.) I've left a blank space for a bench as well as a short flagstone path leading up to said bench. If you squint and tilt your head, it all becomes clear. Those of you who have grown hostas know that they will take no time at all to fill this space.

So that baby shade garden is at the very back of one side of our (rather large, at least for being in town) yard. Eventually, as in many, many years down the road, I would like that entire side of the yard to be entirely made up of plantings--no grass, just plants, walkways, stones, perhaps a pond, etc. This shade garden is the very first step toward such a thing.

I squee a little bit inside when I think about it.

Moving on.

When you're standing at the garage, looking at the back of our home, this is what you see:

(The vegetable garden is what you see to the left.)

And when you walk from the garage to the shade garden, this is what you see when you look toward the house:

The Professor built that patio last summer, remember? And does that patio set look familiar? Hmm? (I'll elaborate on that process in another post.) Anyway, around that patio I'm making some flower beds. They're sort of rough right now (as in, I've just dug up earth and planted stuff, without edging/cleaning anything up), but I plan on finishing them up this week. They are the flip side of my eventual yard-of-plantings: I will start on one end with these beds and on the other end with the shade garden, and eventually they will meet in the middle.

These are the plants on one side of the patio:

If I knew how to (or had the time to) write on my picture and use arrows to show you what I've got there, I would. Instead, I'll just tell you: bottom yellow is coreopsis, above that is an Evil Ways butterfly bush, and above that are some tiger lilies (transplanted from a too-shady part of the back yard.)

This is the other side of the patio:

Bottom (corner): something from my neighbor, but I can't remember the name, SORRY; yet some more lilies that I transplanted from the back; an entrapment day lily; and a red leaf SOMETHING (perhaps a weigela? perhaps a dwarf plum?) from our favorite nursery distributor. Seriously, I bought this plant from our guy for a song, and now I can't remember the name of it, and of course it was such a backwoods operation that it doesn't have a tag or anything. Oh, well. We'll see. It will be a surprise.

So that's the patio. Let's move on to the back of the house on the other side of the sidewalk. Until this spring this long flower bed was hidden under years of weeds, wild mint, and even a large amount of poison ivy. (My dad caught that in the face. Not a pretty picture.) I worked hard in March/April to weed this all out until it was simply dirt, a blank canvas. And then I started planting.

This is the portion of the back flower bed right outside the back door:

Right next to the walk I've planted rosemary, chives, lavender, and rhubarb (as well as a rogue tomato plant, which wouldn't fit in the garden), and I'm waiting on some oregano from a neighbor. The idea is to plant perennial edible (or useable, in the lavender's case) plants right near the door so that I will be able to access them easily. On the concrete pad (the base of an old-fashioned television antennae, which are still present in our old neighborhood) I have basil and mint growing in pots. (Note: I'd get rid of this pad if possible. We tried last summer. It's buried like six feet in the ground.) To the left side of the concrete is trailing cupflower, which will provide nice ground cover and a lovely white flower. The large bush is a Korean lilac, also from our favorite rural nursery guy, and the two flowers in front of it are pink fountain gauras, which I have fallen in love with this year and highly recommend for everyone and anyone interested in a bit of whimsy in their beds.

Air conditioner.

Beyond the air conditioner we have this:

Obviously I had to work around both the air conditioner and the compost bin. In front of the compost bin I buried a large slab of flagstone, since The Professor needs access to the drawer at the bottom of the bin. In between the air conditioner and the compost bin are two stella d'oro daylilies; on the left of the bin are two more stella d'oro lilies, as well as a cherry chimes daylily. Right to the left of the compost bin are some tallish plants I got from my neighbor; she couldn't remember the name, but they will produce a very nice white flower once they get over the shock of moving a few houses down the road. In front of the flagstone are three sad-looking little clumps--those are some creeping phlox that were doing badly in the front flower bed. I replaced them with some healthier phlox and moved these to the back, mainly because they looked at me sadly and I wanted to give them a second chance. All the other little plants in front of the bin are lady in red salvia, with some pentas to the right and even a rogue alyssum.

I should interject here (since this is as good a time as any) that I do not typically plant annuals, which include the lady in red salvia, the pentas, and the alyssum, in the ground. I hate wasting money on plants that will just die after a season, and I feel really wasteful and cruel and guilty. With the exception of these three specimens, everything I plant in the ground is a perennial. The only reason I planted these guys is because I got them free (thanks, Zach!)

Oh, duh, the biggish bush to the left of the compost bin is a red prince weigela. I have a weigela in the front that is two years old and FLOURISHING with much SPLENDOR and PRIDE, and so I am now officially a big fan. This guy is an anchor plant, right at the corner of the back bed before the side of the house comes back in on itself:

OK, so this final portion of the flower bed is rather pathetic right now. I need you to, once again, squint and use your imagination. To the right, right beyond the red prince weigela, are two more stella d'oro daylilies (these suckers are really popular and really hardy here, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon). In that corner spot, right in the afternoon shade, are several peony plants that I moved from the back. (Apparently Mrs. Dorothy had planted quite a bit of sun-loving plants before the trees back there got big and made the area shady. Those peonies have been coming up for the last two years, giving me two blooms, and them pooping out. So I moved them. They'll be fine--I just cut them back.) The tallish bunch of plants next to the invisible peonies is another something from my neighbor; these guys will give a hot pink flower. Next to the Mystery Pink Plant is some lamb's ear, a donation from my aunt. It's looking sad right now (it moved all the way from Kansas City!), but I have every confidence that it will soon be happy and flourishing and taking over my yard.

Next to the lamb's ear, at the left end of the bed, is a small rose bush that has a good story. (And you get to hear it!) The Professor had to tackle a six foot growth of poison ivy that was growing near the garage (thanks, Mrs. Dorothy!) not long after we moved here, and he, very sadly, had to sacrifice a rose bush that had grown in tandem with the poison ivy. This spring I was poking around back there, digging up peonies, and I found this rose bush bravely pushing through the dirt, determined to live, despite our brutal treatment of it. I promptly transplanted it to this spot, since its original position never gave it enough sunlight to produce, you know, roses. I have great hopes for it.

When you round the corner you encounter the north side of our home, which is bordered by hostas that I planted last year, all transplants from the front of the home. (They are doing beautifully, and I have edged their flower bed very precisely. Thankyouverymuch.) This is the end of the north side of our home, where the corner of the house yields to the front flower bed:

I've written about the red plum we planted there, and, as you can see, it's doing well. Next to it are some fabulously large lilies I planted last week, also a gift from my kindred spirit neighbor. These lilies are just dying to bloom, and I'm so excited to see the color they will add to the front.

I wish I could show you the front of the home itself, as it's doing beautifully. I've worked hard to edge and prune it, too, and I'm really proud of my work. But, for obvious reasons (namely, my family's safety), I can't do that. Just imagine the most awesome-looking house ever, and you're probably close.

Finally (I promise) I planted these little groupings on either side of the end of our front walk just yesterday:

They include blue salvia, verbena, and two types of sedum, and they are a nice point of interest for our home from the end of the sidewalk. Eventually I'd like to have either side of the sidewalk taken up with plantings (CAH-RAZY.) This is my start.

SO. I'm done. I am in no way looking for accolades or trying to say how awesome I am. No, really, I just want to show you what we're doing around here, and principally that involves gardening this time of year. And let me say this: if you don't feel like working for several hours a day weeding and just doing general upkeep, then please, don't plant. It's seriously a ton of work, and sometimes I'm overwhelmed. Sure, I'm tan, but I'm also exhausted at the end of every day. And covered in mosquito bites. And never, ever quite done with what I've planned on accomplishing.

Despite all the negatives, I'm so pleased with it all. Happy planting!