A Re-Do For The Front Garden

I usually write about what I have blooming around the garden for Fertilizer Friday but today I am going to show you what I bought on my trip to the nursery.  This nursery is the farthest from my home so I have not been there since the spring.

We're here and I am ready to buy because I have changes to make.

Our host was waiting for us!

Take a look at those spheres and obelisks and grasses.

It was a beautiful day, perfect for choosing some plantings for my front garden renovation.  As I looked over the shrubbery there was a person behind me with a name badge.  I asked her if she worked there, so I could ask her for a recommendation and she informed me that she owned a garden center in Milwaukee and was there for a group meeting.

The asters always look so good in the pots, but I have never had much luck growing them in the garden, except for my Purple Dome.

We talked about hydrangeas and all of the different varieties.  We both said we were not thrilled with Endless Summer and she said the growers are now suggesting that it not be cut down and mulched up to eight inches in the fall.  I was looking for Incrediball but she suggested I wait on that one because in her nursery they were very floppy in the pots, maybe they would be more upright when in the ground!

We both fell in love with a new hydrangea called Tickled Pink, beautiful color pink - bright, not faded.

I wanted a small shrub for in front of my evergreen plantings and she recommended Weigela Dark Horse, 2-3 feet tall and wide with dark bronze leaves and bright pink flowers.  I bought two of them, a little pricey but I think they will add some color out in front.

Foliage of Weigela Dark Horse from spring through fall.

I walked over to the the grasses with a real employee of the nursery looking for a small miscanthus that would stay about three feet high and I loaded two Miscanthus Little Kitten on to my cart.  I just love that name! 

Miscanthus Little Kitten

I couldn't pass up that new, most mildew resistant phlox called Candy Store Bubblegum.  Well, now I have to do all of the grunt work, pulling out and replanting.  Isn't this what gardening is all about?

Candy Store, Variety Bubblegum Phlox

This is a great time of year to purchase containers, fifty percent off at this nursery!

A sea of mums 

 I love those earth tone pots!

I hope you have enjoyed my trip to Planters Palette in Winfield, Illinois.  They are an upscale nursery that has a close relationship with the Morton Arboretum, located about thirty miles west of Chicago.

Looking Forward

I really am looking forward to fall and redoing some areas of the garden.  My daylilies came today from R.Seawright in Massachusetts, Sandra Elizabeth a late daylily and Eileen Clymer an early daylily.  They even threw in a free Don Stevens a middle season daylily.  I have ordered from this company many times and their daylilies are top notch, like they had been in your garden for years and just divided.

Eileen Clymer

Don Stevens

Sandra Elizabeth

Tomorrow I will unband them and soak them in a bucket of water for most of the day.  All of the foliage is cut when daylilies are shipped but they soon sprout new leaves and look very healthy even the first season.

I am in the process of moving the iris, Caesar's Brother and other varieties that have not done well either because of too much shade or being crowded out by Becky.  Geranium Magnificum also has to be moved since it has not bloomed in the seven years we have been here. 

 Caesar's Brother got very big but very few flowers this year

These are a beautiful yellow and white iris that did not bloom this year because they were covered by the huge Becky Shasta Daisies.

Chicago Weathermaster will also be moved as they became quickly overshadowed by Heliopsis Lemon Queen.  They need to have a little more time to show off those wonderful blooms.  Now, I just have to find a place for them. 

I have cut back Henryi Clematis this summer because it was so woody and overgrown.  It is coming back slowly and very tender - so, I hope it grows enough this summer to bloom next spring.  It is a type 2 which normally does not get cut back but just trimmed, however, there was so much dead that I felt this was the only way to go. 

Betty Corning Clematis will also be moved because I just don't feel it gets enough sun under my neighbor's lilac bush on the south side of my garden.  Again, I am not sure where I am going to fit it in!

I totally dislike moving plants, it is like uprooting someone and expecting them to adapt to a whole new environment and be beautiful.  Sometimes it works out the plant is happy and I am happy.

Reincarnation In The Garden

This is the time of year we begin to get a little down when we look at some of our plants in the garden. First, the incessant rains, producing huge plants, then the heat shriveling them up.  No matter how much we fertilize and water some plants have not done well. 

Dahlias are not blooming and even though watered daily are drying out.  Some of the plantings are burned.

I am going to concentrate on just one area, my hayracks on the garden shed.  Last year they were beautiful, but I did make a few changes in plants this year which could be the problem.

Last Year

Well, I couldn't imagine looking at them for the rest of the summer and into fall, so I decided to do something I have never done before - redo the hayracks into something totally different.  It has always been my rule that by the middle of June, I am done with container gardening, not worth adding anything else or even replacing plants that did not live up to expectations.  I just merely yanked them and lived with what was left.

If I am going to spend the time doing this in 93 degree heat, I am going to do it right, adding new moisture control soil, along with some soil moist and some moss on top of the soil for protection.

I will even out the verbena, mix in the soil moist with some new potting soil.

The dahlias have not done well in any container this year, only in the vegetable garden and in the border.  All the container dahlias are going into the vegetable bed when I cut down the Ice Carnival Daylilies.  We will

see if they come back to life.

       Replanted dahlias in veggie garden between trimmed daylilies.

Does anyone else have plants that need a reincarnation this year?  I am seeing lots of beauties on the web, but not much that looks like some of my throw aways. 

Replanted Hayracks

This poor thing certainly needs some help.  It is scorched even though it was watered every day.  I will cut it back, fertilize, and turn it to a better side that had more shade.

A little better!

Dahlias planted in the veggie garden in spring

Trimmed my Costco containers, daisies and petunias

 I mossed the inside of my containers that  face that wicked west sun.  It will cut down on the water evaporation.

Home Depot had a  fresh shipment of annuals, so there must be many who do this each year even though it's a new venture for me.  Not only were people loading up on their great perennial sale, but several were walking out with baskets of petunias and carts of annuals. 

As I walked out with my fresh new annuals and moisture control soil, the person behind me had a cart full of mums.  Yikes!  In another few weeks, I'll be thinking pumpkins?

A Blank Slate

I don't know which is worse, starting with a worn out garden or beginning with nothing at all.  I have done both, and I think the most difficult is rejuvenating an old garden - what to keep, what to discard is the continual question.  Most likely one is stuck with established shade trees (unless expense is not a problem) and huge evergreens, shrubs and low growing evergreens being easier to take out.

I will use my daughter's home as an example of long past their prime plantings.  Slowly, as her funds allow, I do a plan for each area, replanting the  gardens with plants that are easier to maintain and have great eye appeal. 

In the large perennial garden bed, we removed just about everything except some daylilies and the Sweet Autumn Clematis along the back fence (now being cut to the ground each year - see how large it gets with yearly cutting).  The garden has just begun and constantly changes, many types of daylilies and phlox, pink and red double knockouts, shasta daisies, gaillardia, rozanne geranium, may night salvia, russian sage, and autumn joy sedum.  The four rose bushes are the backbone of this garden and are blooming until the snow flies.  In the spring is is filled with hundreds of daffodils of many varieties - hardest part waiting for the tops to die down without pulling them or cutting them down.

Along her front porch and the front of the home were fifty year old yews that have been removed and replaced with Endless Summer Hydrangeas and Chicagoland Boxwoods, a new magnolia, Blue Dart Myrtle groundcover, Blushing Bride Hydrangeas, hostas, ferns and some saved astilbes that were on another part of the property.  Most of the plants were found at Home Depot at very reasonable prices

A large area along the side of the home has just been cleared of pachysandra, tree roots and overgrown shrubs.  I have done a plan for this area which will take awhile to complete because of the expense.  All that is there now are some new Green Velvet Boxwoods and a Limelight Hydrangea (they may be moved eventually).  I am going to really have to rack my brain to come up with a cover for those heating exhaust pipes!  Plantings have to be four feet away - any ideas?

At my stage, I want everything to be instant but a little bit done each year with planning and using the correct plant materials, becomes a very satisfying accomplishment.