The Garden In May, Part II

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Welcome to the backyard, the most challenging part of the garden.  It is big, it is shady as well as very sunny in parts, and it is the playpen of Madison, our Westie, and Lily the lab.    It is a joint effort between my daughter and me and we argue consult constantly on what goes in and what comes out.   We have learned to compromise and to pick our battles.  Some of them carry over from one year to the next, but we are still friends...until the next battle.

The grass is the biggest headache in the back.  We have drainage problems due to a sloping yard that guides the water down to the creek on the other side of the fence when we have big storms.  We can only plant fescue in the Fall,  so this year we will have to live with big empty patches.  It irritates me to no end but life is not perfect.  Neither is our yard.

The hostas are the stars of the year.  They are on steroids! Keep in mind this is only the second week in May.

The New Dawn rose by the bird house.  No tenants this year.  Coco, has done a good job of keeping new parents away.

Confederate jasmine planted three years ago.

The peonies have also had a good year.

A closer look of the birdhouse.

This year's project is the path to the fence which gets very muddy when it rains. Those are flats of sedum I purchased at Lowe's.  We'll see how they do.  I've left the right side open so we can have access to the other side of the fence.

Madame Mere's private garden.

The climbing Japanese hydrangea with Mountain Laurel in back is by the gate that separates the front and back garden.  It leads to MM's apartment from the outside.

And here's Coco, whose help in patrolling the yard and keeping it free of bunnies is indispensable in the preservation of this garden, particularly the hostas.  We are lucky to have a fence and a Westie to keep the deer away.

Next up, my domain...the front yard.

The Summer Garden..Winners And Losers

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The summer garden these past two years has been one of boom and bust.  Very cold winters, and very hot summers just about sums it up.

I don't pretend to be a master gardener and some of you know that when I moved to this house I had to seek the help of my readers to identify most of the plants.  But I have learned, the hard way.  Lots of reading and trial an error and lots of dollars spent experimenting with different plants have gone into this garden.  I had no experience with perennials and, what little I knew, came from weekend gardening up north in Connecticut.   Most of what grows well there, including my favorite lilacs and peonies, does not do well in the South.

Ten years in Florida were spent mastering the art of container gardening on the balcony of my ocean front apartment in Key Biscayne.  There the killer was the wind.  With a growing season of twelve months, everything you planted grew like a weed.  Orchids lasted forever and then re bloomed six months later.   I had retired and this was the kind of gardening I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

And then I moved to Georgia....and here I learned that, just like investing in the stock market, it pays to diversify.

Between my daughter and me, we have just about tried every traditional perennial that grows in the South including azaleas, Confederate jasmine, gardenias, hydrangeas, crepe myrtles and camellias.  . The only one I haven't been able to stick in the ground, for lack of space, is a magnolia.  We have one growing in the woods next to the fence, but it won't bloom.  It gets no sun and little light and I'm afraid to go near it for fear of stepping on a snake.

Surprisingly, some of these traditional  perennials are the ones that have gotten hit the hardest .   The azaleas and the jasmine bloomed but not as long or vibrantly as usual.  No such luck with the gardenias or the hydrangea macrophylla. They got hit with a frost just as they were starting to bud and that clinched their fate.  No blooms, except for this one.

No blooms either for the Moonlight Hydrangea by the garden gate.  That was a killer for me, I so look forward to those flowers.  The camellias bloomed later than usual, almost right into Spring. Nothing fazes the crepe myrtle.  It does it's thing year in and year out in spite of the weather.  It needs a good pruning this winter before it overtakes the front of the house.

What saved the summer were the hydrangea paniculata which blooms on new growth.

The one above  is the limelight hydrangea .  There are four in front of mother's window out back.

I have a few of the hydrangea paniculata tardiva along the fence but they are not showing any blooms.

My daughter planted caladium bulbs in a pot to add some color interest out back.  They have done well in spite of the heat.  They are a definite comeback next year.

The hostas have also done well.  Their only enemy is the little Sous Chef who likes to play hide and seek with Lily our lab.

The winners this summer are the ferns.  Now I know why they are a symbol of Southern hospitality. Nothing else thrives like them in this humidity!

Boston fern by the garden gate.  Moonlight hydrangea on the bottom right had no blooms this year.

The Man fern almost died after the surprise frost in early Spring.

That's what you call a come back!

Boston ferns hanging from the crepe myrtle add some interest to the front garden

I've never had a fern that looked this good!

Kitties and ferns by the front door.  How is that for Southern charm!

The fox tail fern is a new addition and definitely a keeper

It will over winter in Madame Mere's apartment

I just came in from watering the front garden.  It's like the land that time forgot out there.  Every year I promise myself that I will not buy as many plants.  Every year I violate this promise and curse throughout the months of July and August when I have to go out and water.

The kitchen is closed for awhile.  The last thing on my mind is food...   I can't wait 'til Fall.

Garden Journal...The Hostas Take Center Stage

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This past winter we experienced some of the most frigid temperatures we have seen in this country in years.  They took a toll on everyone's gardens, including ours.  The gardenias were burnt to a crisp and the hydrangeas were devastated.  The rosemary bush, the lavender and several vines did not come back in the Spring. My little "jasmine that could", or night blooming jasmine, that I was so proud of never saw the light of day. ..but that was too much to expect.

Several things did better than expected, including the  newly planted tulips and peonies.  In the end everything, except the clematis by the mailbox,  a couple of boxwood and the rosemary and lavender bushes, eventually came back.  The gardenias have lots of new growth, but they are not quite ready for prime time.

The Confederate Jasmine looked like toast through April, but look at it now.

With no blooms from the hydrangeas this summer, the hostas have taken center stage.  What a show they are putting on! Nature never ceases to amaze me.

They were planted just last year and look at them now.  I have learned, the hard way, to go with whatever works and hostas definitely love our backyard.  I would love to plant astilbe in back of the hostas next year but there are all those big roots around the tree.  The experimental Japanese fern I tried last year did not come back, which is a shame for it makes for a beautiful contrast.  I am open to suggestions!

Some varieties of hostas grow much faster than others...or our local bunnies are more discerning than those to the north. They love and feast on the yellow variegated ones.

Until our cat, Coco, came to live with us, the flowers on these hostas never saw more than a day or two before the bunnies feasted on them. I planted coleus in the front this year but I will not be sure until it spreads some more.  The coleus look beautiful next to the yellow variegated hostas but the latter have been overpowered by the others.  I think perhaps I should have planted something with white or purple flowers.  But I will think about that tomorrow....

If you look to the left in back you can see one of the Oak Leaf hydrangeas we planted last Fall. They are my new favorite!

There are some blooms on the mophead hydrangeas but the color is faded and blah.  At this time in the summer  they are usually in full bloom.  You can barely see my friend Sandra's hydrangea to the right of the azaleas with just leaves again this year.  She brought it as a baby when she came for lunch almost two years ago and I was so looking forward to its first blooms this year....

There was some color earlier in the summer from the New Dawn rose and the clematis Violette next to the birdhouse, but the flowers are long gone.  I was amazed they both survived this past winter as they just went in the ground in April last year.  According to those who know, the combination of the two is dynamite!

This part of the backyard gets afternoon sun which is deadly here in July and August; so whatever I plant next to the bird bath has to be heat and scorching sun tolerant.

Decisions, decisions, decisions!

The elephant ears are my daughter's.  I saw a picture in one of the magazines recently with New Guinea Impatiens around the bottom. Next year....

More hostas on the side of the house next to the steps leading to the backyard.  Last I counted, there were over 50 hostas in the garden planted by these little hands.  Nothing more to add here...this is the Sous Chef's favorite place for her toilette.  She is quite the acrobat!

Hostas and the newly planted lamium.

Our white crepe myrtle tree sets the tone for the colors in the front yard.  The new roof and lots of $$ spent in keeping that grass green.

Artemisa and lambs ears, a purple clematis still in a copper pot, an English ivy topiary and the newly planted Winchester Cathedral rose from David Austin are thriving in front of the house.

There is another rose bush, just like this, on the other side of the path.  You can see the purple platycodon, or balloon flowers, that survived, together with the dianthus, my inexperienced gardening the first year.  Don't ask....I'm a city girl at heart although I spent a lot of time in the country when I was young.    

Something low needs to replace what was lost in front of the rose bush, but not until next Spring. It's too darn hot out there.

This year I decided to go all white by the front door with fewer pots. It was an ordeal to keep them watered through the summer.  One learns the hard way...

Something else that works...the ferns by the front door.  They love that Georgia humidity in summer!

Well, I hope at least you are impressed with the way I can now rattle off the names of my plants.  If you have been around long enough, you will remember how some of my readers had to help me decipher what was growing in the garden of the new house. Yes, some plants did not survive my ministrations or my discovery of  Roundup.  I was like a kid in a candy store...but that was a long time and many wasted $$$$ ago.  It's the only way to learn.