dianaschnuth

First off, let me say that calling it “my garden” is a double misnomer, as it’s not so much a garden per se as it is a collection of flowerbeds — and, if it is anyone’s garden, it’s still Sonia’s. At least, it is until I know everything that’s in every bed and perhaps rearrange things to my liking.

That said, I’m doing my best with my limited time and resources to make it my own.

Last year, I hesitated to do anything to the beds, not knowing until things bloomed (or went to seed) which were flowers and which were weeds. Our former lawn care guy took me on a tour of the beds, identified most of the plants, and gave me a few pointers on caring for some of them, but it wasn’t entirely comprehensive. I ended up with giant weeds (or, more correctly, unidentified and presumably native plants) and a maypop vine that was pretty enough, but overgrew my beds and made things look like an unkempt jungle.

I knew going into this spring that there was no way I would have have enough time to get everything done that needed to be done. I prioritized the best that I could, knowing what things looked like by mid-summer last year, and tried to allot time to get to most of it. At first I had thought that I could sic our new lawn care guy on some of it, but a lot of what I did was part planned, part triage — I’d get outside to do one thing, then see another thing (or two or three) that really needed addressing.

This is kind of a brain dump for me to remember what I did when this spring, and what still needs to be done this summer, and as a reference for me next year, as well. So, I do apologize for the massive amount of information in this one post… but, then again, I don’t. 🙂
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Peony Alexander Woolcott George McFartsypants (so dubbed by my husband) is ready to bloom in the flowerbed behind the house. I also found others of this variety in front of the house by the office window and along the front fence in a couple of spots.

Edit: I realized after looking at the Bloom Sequence page on Peony’s Envy that this is not Alexander Woollcott, although I’m not sure what it is. It’s more on the early side — it’s blooming before my pink and white peonies, anyway. I’m going to just call it a red peony (or call it George) and leave its exact variety as a mystery.

The alliums are starting to open up. I love the vertical height that these give to the flowerbeds.

The hostas along the south fence in the back yard are looking great! There are some other random plants that come up between them, like Russian sage and chives and butterfly weed — eventually I’ll need to decide which plants get moved, and to where. I think I’ve read that butterfly weed doesn’t like to be moved, but I could be misremembering.

These yellow plants are popping up in the groundcover along the front fence by our driveway. I know there are some lilies here (perhaps the tall, light sage-colored leaves are the lilies?), but I’m not sure what these pretty yellow flower-looking plants are. I know I like them, though!

Looking forward to spending a little quality time outside in the flowerbeds in the next couple of weeks to keep everything looking neat and tidy, and to do some documentation to decide what stays, what goes, and what gets moved.