Thursday, March 23, 2006

My wild garden

I am a Gemini. I get bored easily. I like change. I garden.

One particular part of our yard has gone through so many transformations it's hard for me to remember them all. We started out with a very formal circle garden in this area, a simple design of blooming azaleas, English ivy and pachysandra, a hydrangea, and a beautiful variegated holly tree; all originally planted and cared for here by the previous owners of our house (my husband's aunt and uncle). A late summer storm one year brought down a neighbor's black locust on our holly, splitting the trunk. We salvaged the hydrangea, but replaced everything else with viburnums (love them!) and old garden roses. This was nice for a while, until the roses got leggy and the viburnums grew huge! So we moved the viburnums to the border of our property and added a few dogwoods and other plants to make something of a woodland edge. Very nice and thriving now!

A year later we cleared the area and built the pond there. But for the summer in between I had a garden that was an absolute riot of flowers. I went crazy planting annuals and perennials that would attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. My husband thought it looked like crap (he's an orderly sort of fellow when it comes to *his yard*), but I loved the craziness of it all. Every flower was planted with pollinators in mind and it was buzzing with them! I loved to spend time sitting in the middle of it all and watching all the insect activity.

When we put in the pond I transplanted as many plants as I could. The pond is orderly and neat, so the DH is happy, but I miss my wild garden and all the wonder that came with it that summer. The purple flowers pictured above are perennial Mexican Agastache (very popular with bumblebees) and Verbena bonariensis; an annual that re-seeds with utter abandon and is well-loved by butterflies.

4 comments:

Puggyspice said...

BEAUTIFUL garden! It takes a ton of work to grow such a beautiful garden, and so much patience to maintaining it.

We planted viburnums last summer and they did not flower. They are about 6 inches tall. Is that normal?

Endment said...

Wonderful lush riot of color!

We have been working from almost nothing to bring color to the rocks and trees, mostly native plants. Would love to see such lush color. (I keep working ) last year I grew several flats of columbine, foxgloves and lupin... we will see what comes this year

Thanks for the wonderful color

Susan Gets Native said...

If I were a butterfly or bumblebee flying over your garden, I would think I had gone to Heaven!
Gorgeous!

LauraHinNJ said...

puggyspice: Glad to see you back here! Your viburnums are probably to small to flower. Are they planted in full sun?

endment: I would love to be able to grow foxgloves and lupines, but have no luck. Maybe our climate here is too hot and humid for them? I keep trying delphiniums, but they bloom for a summer and are gone.

susan: I didn't recognize you with that new pic! Thanks and hope you'll share pics of your flowers this summer!