Saturday, May 15, 2010

Rearrange for a New Look

The rain finally stopped yesterday, so I went to one of my client's to actually get some work done. I spent most of the time removing the tulips from the containers around her front door and planting them throughout the gardens. Tulips add a wonderful vertical element when planted in a patch of groundcover astilbe (Astilbe pumila). I also wove some tulips through a planting of Annabelle hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescans 'Annabelle'). The hydrangeas are typically bare until the first part of May, so the tulips will add a punch to the area in spring. The annuals come next week, so I had to get everything ready for the big installation.

I spent today working in my yard. It's amazing how much my yard has, well, gone to seed (see "About Me"). My husband and I scheduled when the Big Yard Revamp will take place - it was much too big a project to tackle today. So I focused my energies on the garden along the sidewalk leading to the front door.

This garden has been a weedy, uncohesive mess for too long. After weeding (it always surprises me how much time that eats up!) I started planting. I had saved various volunteer perennial seedlings from clients' gardens (after making sure there was no where to place them in their yards, of course): lady's mantle (Achillea mollis), catmint of unknown cultivar (Nepeta sp), and unnamed perennial sage (Salvia sp.). I moved the achillea closer to the front edge, planted the salvia in groups of three - the magic number - near the back, and the nepeta in a meandering line. Next I filled in the spaces with tulips. The space actually looks like a garden now! I can't wait to see how everything fills in.

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