Garden update

I live in a garden. When I open the front door, this is what confronts me. Sometimes I just stand there and breathe it all in. How lucky I am!

Since the last post, two weeks ago, the Siberian irises, baptisia, catmint, and roses have all started to bloom.

This is the sidewalk view now. Those gray-leaved things in the front are rose campion. They seed themselves all over, but particularly like growing next to concrete and brick. I usually move them around a little, making sure to have some clumps next to the brick fence posts.

This is also where the new rose garden is - the sunniest spot I could find.

The mock orange is in bloom, and the fragrance is wonderful! It is a little weedy, and I have less of it than I used to. But like so many other things, it's really not very interesting when it's not in bloom. Here it is in a narrow zone between the side of the garage and the neighbor's ugly chain link fence, along with some ferns, lily of the valley, and lacecap hydrangeas which will bloom later.

The sweetbay magnolias (two of them!) that I planted last summer are both covered with buds and starting to bloom. They are so gorgeous and fragrant!

But there is still work to be done. The self-imposed mowing reduction program continues. See where the curve of the hose is in the picture below? I'm going to continue the garden around to cover all that grass on the left, leaving just a nice little flat place in the middle - more like a "room". It would be better, I guess, if the room were in the BACK, but - oh well! There are pleasant spots there as well. The garden will just be more of the same easy stuff: hostas, boxwood, heuchera, cranesbill, sweet woodruff - maybe a few daylilies - all things that will fill in quickly and not be a lot of work. I think I'll be able to fill it all in using plants that I already have, for the most part. The new tree peony will be there - just to the left of the baptisia (the biggest plant in the foreground), allowing a little grass path for access to the "room" between the two.

And this is the mowing reduction back yard version. I rescued 3 small hollies from the depths of the plateau and put them here (hard to see in the photo, for some reason) and will continue the hosta border along the hose line. The wood stick marks the property line, more or less. The neighbors will now have to mow that part. Yay!

And here's another view of that problem area by the back door. Thank goodness for those big blue hostas! I found that clematis buried under a pile of leaves and helped it get started up the trellis. Maybe there is hope. The red cooler doesn't really need to be there.

For most of the year this spirea is just a big green blob and I wonder why I hang on to it. Then it does THIS, and I remember! I do like the way its form contrasts with the hosta.

But here's the big project of the last few days: the Japanese knotweed! With all the cool and rainy weather there haven't been any good Round-up days since the "helpers" were here. The ones we zapped then have stayed zapped, but in the meantime, there are serious six-to-eight footers in there. Lots of them. My MO is to cut them down now as I encounter them and go in later with the Round-up on a regular basis. Nasty, nasty stuff.