I’m taking over the GPOD a bit this week, and I thought it would be fun to turn the lens on my own garden for a change.
My main challenge is that my lofty ideas of what’s possible are matched with a decidedly un-lofty amount of time and money. That’s probably because while working at a garden magazine, I get to look at photos of beautiful gardens all day long, even though most of my actual days are spent attached to a computer rather than a trowel.
So naturally, I’ve started some pretty ambitious garden projects, and then let them figure themselves out for a while. Some of that benign neglect has turned into happy surprises. Other times, not so much. Either way, it’s a good reminder that a garden is a craft you hone over years, not something you conjure overnight, no matter how many gorgeous photos cross my desk each week.
One of my more ambitious undertakings was starting a long border while working full-time and raising two toddlers. My garden doesn’t look like the ones in the pages of Fine Gardening, and that’s okay. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a garden takes time to become what you imagine it can be. There are wins and works-in-progress here in equal measure, and today I thought I’d share a bit of both.
The Fight for Space
The ferns, bee balm, strawberry, and irises are duking it out here. Was it a mistake to plant four heavy spreaders in the same garden bed? Perhaps.
A lively tangle of Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides, Zones 3–9), scarlet bee balm (Monarda didyma, Zones 4–9), sword-like iris foliage (Iris spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9), and garden phlox (Phlox paniculata spp. and cvs., Zones 4–8) in the background, all happily elbow each other for room.
Size Matters
A combination I’m loving right now is lavender, ‘Fat Albert’ blue spruce, and panicle hydrangea. This color palette makes me very happy. Will I need to relocate one or more of these plants down the road as they outgrow their space? Almost certainly, but for now I’m simply enjoying how well they play together.
English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia, Zones 5–9) is in full purple bloom in front of the blue-needled ‘Fat Albert’ spruce (Picea pungens ‘Fat Albert’, Zones 2–8), with the creamy white blooms of a panicle hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata, Zones 3–8) right behind.
My monster panicle hydrangea, which I do intend to move before it eats the house, with its flower heads still greenish and just opening, arches over a clump of hosta—I believe this to be ‘Empress Wu’ (Hosta spp. and cvs.) with its white summer flowers. The soft, feathery mound in the background is a Japanese maple (Acer palmatum, Zones 5–8). Everything but the hosta was here before we moved in. We added the wood for a bit of interest to offset the sea of foliage.
The Long Border, and Its Uninvited Guests
I’ll admit I didn’t prep this bed as thoroughly as I should have, so a few grasses I didn’t invite have made themselves at home and keep me busy pulling them out. A good weeding session followed by a generous layer of mulch is high on my list this season, and I’m looking forward to giving this bed the fresh start it deserves.
Sneezeweed (Helenium ‘Mardi Gras’, Zones 3–9) in warm orange and yellow, a pink coneflower (Echinacea purpurea, Zones 3–9) up front, and the spent flower heads of Trifolium rubens (Zones 4–8) are in the background along the white picket fence.
More sneezeweed and coneflower bloom along the fence line, with ‘Twinkle Toes’ pulmonaria (Pulmonaria ‘Twinkle Toes’, Zones 3–8) filling in the front.
A clump of ornamental onion (Allium senescens, Zones 4–8), with its soft pink-purple globes, is backed by Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Blue Jean Baby’, Zones 4–9) and sunflower (Helianthus annuus, annual) along the fence. The Japanese beetles have discovered the sunflowers, but I’ve been picking them off as I spot them, and I’m optimistic there will be blooms to show for it in the weeks ahead.
Maybe next year I’ll have a long border with no uninvited grass or weeds to speak of. Or maybe I won’t, and that will be its own kind of fine. We’ll see!
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