weekend update

So, the front-door bed, then. Ultimately, I. HAVE. PLANS. for the front of the house, both landscaping-based and someday-I'd-love-to-have-a-proper-front-porch-based. Usually you do any hardscaping/building first, but I got tired of waiting for that stuff to happen. So over the past few years, I've been haphazardly plopping plants in the ground near the front door. Most have croaked, leaving only prairie sage gray sagewort and a few bluebell bulbs (both of which came with the house).

The first step in my plan for the front door bed was to transplant the surviving-but-not-thriving daisies and sages to the sidewalk bed. They've all weathered the move, and have even thrown up some new foliage.

Next: figure out what to put in their place(s). I wanted a mix of perennials that wouldn't require much fussing. They needed to be relatively shade- and low-water-tolerant. Eventually I settled on a mix of hardy geraniums (cranesbill), columbine, and leadwort. Final plant list:

• 3 @ Geranium richardsonii
• 1 @ Geranium procurrens × Geranium psilostemon ‘Ann Folkard’
• 1 @ Geranium phaeum ‘Raven’
• 2 @ Ceratostigma plumbaginoides Leadwort
• 2 @ Aquilegia vulgaris ‘William Guiness’ columbine
• 1 @ Aquilegia rockii Columbine
• 1 @ Aquilegia vulgaris plena ‘Ruby Port’ columbine

Here's my very rough sketch:



Been plugging in plants over the past couple weeks as they came in. Here's the planted bed — sticks to mark locations, so I didn't trample stuff (also to know where to look in the spring). The remaining prairie sage gray sagewort can stay until the new plants (hopefully) fill out.


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All the flowers are white and/or shades of and blue/purple/pink. The Ann Folkard geranium is supposed to have very chartreuse-y foliage, and of course the leadwort gets those nice red leaves this time of year.

Here's a silly Photoshopped version (thanks, Google images!) of what I hope it will all end up looking like — not that they'll all be blooming at the same time, ha ha!:


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long weekend update

Called it for the backyard for the summer. Pulled out the tomatoes and peppers, cut down the 12-foot hollyhock, cut back the Maximilian sunflowers (including the ones in the side yard, which has been impassable from them since July), put away the cages/bamboo stakes and most of the hoses/sprinklers, dug up some of the ever-fabulous Bev's perennial arugula volunteers for Cynthia and Steve. Picked up a new Dramm watering wand (gift card from Jim for Newman's), 8 Lacinato kale starts (Agua Fria Nursery) and 4 cota plants (Plants of the Southwest). Kale went in the raised bed, where the tomatoes were. Cota went out front in the sidewalk bed.

Kale:



Cota (note one of the transplanted daisies behind on the right):