5 Plants I Want in Every Garden

Our current garden is still a work in progress, as every garden will ever be, but sometimes I like to think about what my next garden will be like.  We have no immediate plans to move but one day our growing family will need more room in the house (and with two girls probably more bathrooms!). When that day comes there are several plants from my garden that I enjoy so much I will be sure to replant in that new garden. My list for this post isn't all inclusive (or ranked in any way) but here are five plants that I will be sure to get established in any new garden in the future!

Catmint (Nepeta x faassenii 'Walker's Low')

I like catmint for several reasons. It's a constant bloomer.  It always seems to be one of the first perennials to get going in mid-spring and one of the last perennials to stop blooming for fall.  Catmint attracts pollinators constantly and would be a great asset to a vegetable garden for that reason but also as a pest repellent.  Not much bothers a catmint!  The leaves smell great too and can be used in herbal teas.

Catmint on lower left, Poppies to the upper  right.

Poppies

Poppies would be another plant for any garden.  Poppies are extremely easy to grow and if you allow them to set seed they will self-sow.  I planted the red poppies here in this garden from a free packet of seeds several years ago and ever since they have gifted the garden with their beauty during spring.

Japanese Maple

Who wouldn't want a beautiful Japanese maple tree in their garden?  I plan on keeping several in my gardens.  Right now we have six Japanese maples planted.  They were all planted as relatively small plants (they can be quite expensive otherwise!).  My most recent planting was a 'Crimson Queen' which is a beautiful weeping maple with dissected leaves. It's a slow grower and will only reach about 5 feet tall in ten years or so. 

Coneflower

Coneflowers may be a common perennial, but for good reason!  They attract pollinators like magnets, they look great, self-sow nicely, and need very little care. The only issue I have had has been from caterpillar damage in the fall when the silvery checkerspot larvae are hungry.  Of course that isn't even an issue if I consider my coneflowers a butterfly host plant!

Heuchera

For the last of the five let's look at the heuchera! This one is 'Silver Scrolls' but I like so many varieties of heuchera I can't pick just one.  Heuchera is one of the plants in my garden that is never bothered by deer or rabbits.  The only maintenance my heucheras needs is the removal of dead flower stems and an occasional division although I don't consider dividing plants as work! 

There are so many more I could mention,  I'll have to have a follow up post!

How about you? What five plants would you plant in every new garden landscape?

Shooting Around the Garden

Yes deer season is in full swing, but that's not what I'm shooting!  The other day I ventured around the garden just to see what was growing (and what wasn't), what was blooming (and what wasn't), and what I needed to get done (or put off/procrastinate). In the latter category there is a mountain of things I could do but weather conditions and time will no doubt force me to put off today what can be done tomorrow. You've never had that happen to you have you? ;)

Still there were some things to look at and some things to file away in anticipation of spring.


First let's start off with something blooming like this 'Winter Snowman' Camellia.  Two of these are book ending the front foundation garden.  It is only in its second year in the garden and is blooming nicely!

We'll hop around the corner to the corner shade garden.  It is on the list of things to do, mostly because of the weed situation.  I didn't mulch it this past year and it shows.  Mulch can keep many of those annual weeds at bay that self sow.  My strategy now is to remove the chickweed and henbit before they go to seed. The oak leaf hydrangea looked really nice this fall.  The hostas have all faded into the soil leaving the heucheras and hellebores to show off their foliage for the winter.

Here's a closer look around some ajuga in the corner shade garden.  Even the ajuga is having issues with holding off the chickweed.  At least chickweed is easy to remove!  (And its edible, or so I've been told)

If we turn around we end up in the self-sowing garden.  There is lots of green here too only it's a mix of self-sowing plants and weeds.  The poppies have germinated already for a big display next May.  There may be a few other germinated seeds hidden in and around the chickweed.  I need a good day of weeding!   

The arrowwood viburnums are all still retaining their leaves.  I don't remember them holding on this long last year but the yellow colors are welcome when everything else is bare!

This viburnum is in the middle of an open space turning it into several pathways.  I need to transplant the ornamental grasses at its base.  That grass is Nassella tenuissima, Stipa tenuissima, pony tail grass, or Mexican feather grass whatever you want to call it.  I've been told it's invasive but the only spreading it has done in my garden is through division by this gardener's hands.  There is also a purple coneflower nearby that needs relocated.
 

An about face brings us face to face with my favorite shrub for fall color.  OK I can't really pick favorites but red twig dogwoods are one of the best fall color shrubs around.  I highly recommend mixing red twig dogwoods with a backdrop of evergreens and not a backdrop of air conditioners...

...oh and red twig dogwoods propagate VERY easily from cuttings!

We'll end today's post with a view of this little collection of self-sown lunaria seedlings.  Also known as Money Plant, lunaria blooms in the spring with flowers that resemble garden phlox.  As the seeds develop a disc shaped seed pod is formed that is between the size of a quarter and a half dollar.  I gathered seeds from a couple plants near my parent's house and brought them to my garden. 

Thanks for stopping by and visiting my garden in later November.  Don't forget to leave a comment!

Re-planting the Self-Sowing Garden

A couple weeks ago I redid our self-sowing garden.  It was getting messy and too many weeds incorporated themselves into the garden.  I suppose they thought they could pass themselves off as desirable plants but their plans were foiled by May's Lowe's Creative Ideas Project!  The theme for this month was bulb plants.  Being one to never turn away from a project with plants I set out to Lowe's to have some plant buying fun.

I went to the store and collect several bulb plants, a few rhizome plants, and of course a few other assorted plants to fill in the garden.  Once I bought the plants I had to clear the area to plant them.  The self-sowing garden usually holds poppies, cosmos, coneflower, rudbeckia, salvia, and many others but had become overgrown with early spring weeds like chickweed.  I removed the weeds and replaced them with these beautiful plants that I brought home from Lowe's:

Peony 'Wladyslawa' - bloom just opening

Peony 'Wladyslawa' - in full bloom

Iris 'Clarence'

Iris 'Goldkist'

Iris 'Loop the Loop'

Asiatic Lily 'Matrix Orange'

Asiatic with huge blooms! That's my camera lens to the left.

I also added several marigolds which are great plants to help prevent damaging pests in the garden and a couple sweet potato vines to sprawl around as a border ground cover.  Here's the result!

The Asiatic lilies will grow and become more established after this year as will the irises.  In the spring this area will pop up with bulb blooms and eventually give way to the self sowing plants for summer creating a completely different effect for each season!

The Scene Around the Arbor

A couple years ago I was fortunate to participate in the Better Homes and Gardens 48 Hour Blog Challenge. Three other blogs and myself competed with projects subject to online voting to see who would win. The winner took home $5000, unfortunately it wasn't me but the whole project was fun anyway - and it paid for the arbor! My project was the front garden arbor and I've really enjoyed how it helps to anchor the gardens nearby. Three gardens come together at this point (Self Sowing Garden, Corner Shade Garden, and Front Porch Garden) and the arbor ties them together.

On the left side of the arbor is the self sowing garden. The gas line is underneath it somewhere and I wanted a planting area that if for some reason the gas line needed to be dug up I wouldn't worry too much about.
Poppies will be blooming in a couple weeks along with many other self sowing plants.

On the right side of the arbor is the Front Porch Garden. No nifty name for this garden, just the plain old front porch garden! Near the arbor is a crape myrtle which provides summer color and several irises which should begin blooming very soon. At the base of the crape myrtle is golden ragwort a spring blooming native. 

From the other side of the arbor you can see the native honeysuckle blooming along the front porch. The arbor had a third diamond shape that fell off and needs some repair work. The Japanese maple is filling out very nicely after two years. It's no wonder so many people enjoy Japanese maples in their garden! The foliage is just very cool. I bought a new coleus the other day and planted it by the base of the arbor. I still need to plant my caladiums, the last several days have been too wet to do much of anything in the garden.

Here's Maggie, one of the neighbor's cats. If you look close you can see she's caught something - a lizard. I cheer her on when she gets the mice but I like the lizards hanging around to eat the bad bugs!

Here's the arbor and front porch area. My Fiskar's rain barrel is overflowing with rainwater, I really could use another one! The corner shade garden is on the left but hostas still have found places on the other side of the dry creek bed.

What structures hold your garden together?