A Garden Ramble

Come on in! I'm covered in soil but I don't think you'll mind. 

The garden is bursting with growth. I've just started cleaning all the grass out of the trenches between the beds and the lawn and have a long way to go. Someday I'll rip out a massive chunk of that lawn and put in a pond but not today.

These common primroses are one of my favorite spring flowers. I love how simple and straight forward they are.

I've been trying to add more plants with interesting foliage to the garden and love this golden passalong hosta next to the ajuga I've forgotten the name of.

I have loads of dry shade but epimediums thrive in these conditions.  

I think the flowers look like little UFO's.

I found one of our turtles! I'd love to know where they spent the winter. We have three eastern box turtles in the garden that were rescued from the middle of the road.

This corner used to be one of the worst spots in the garden. After redesigning it several times, it's my dry shade success story. The diervilla rivularis by the birdhouse is now six feet tall and the glorious little golden thing in the front is a symphoricarpos 'Blades of Sun'.  It turns green in the summer and has little purple berries. 

The iron cattails are part of the failed frog pond turned successful bog garden. Tall white turtle head ( Chelone glabra 'Alba') fill this spot in the summer.

Our native red columbine and 'Corbett's Gold'. These also do well in dry shade.

Silene 'Rolly's Favorite' is much tougher than it looks. It can tolerate drought but is much happier with moister soil so I moved it closer to the rain garden.

I mixed in some variegated 'Valley High' silene to give this area some zing.

I found fabulous new pots to replace the ones that were broken or cracked. These are from Home Goods, which is exponentially cheaper than our local nursery.

Both of these will be filled with gomphrena.

Fred, the bleeding heart, is huge and getting huger. What do you mean you don't name your plants? I've interplanted Fred with 10 oriental lily bulbs. As the grow taller, I'll tie them to the black metal stakes to guide them out of his foliage. When he's gone dormant for the summer, I'll have lilies to fill the spot.

I extended the front beds by another foot to keep my plants from being decapitated by the mower when they flop onto the grass. But of course, I then had room for more plants.... I just finished mulching this. This is a big butterfly garden full of salvia, coreopsis, and orange milkweed.

The new plants are tiny and hard to see but will grow quickly. The squirrels have already been over to investigate. I have deciduous shrubs in front of my house instead of evergreens. I know this gives me winter disinterest, but who cares.

Fothergilla 'Blue Shadow' loves this spot

and I love my fothergilla.