I really want to get caught up this week - so here we are in the middle of March.
This is the west side of my house, from the front look to the back (to the south). Once the Maple tree (to the right just outside of this picture) and the cherry tree (right side of the photo) leaf out this shade is pretty dense.
This is the sun at 1pm
The two shrubs you can see are Leucothoe axillaris and an unknown azeala. I'll have more pics of these later but they were shrubs that one of my co-workers (Pam) got for free from Home Depot. Last year in June (I think) she had gone to the garden center and they had a bunch of shrubs on this rack that they were going to throw away and she convinced the manager that she would "take them to the dumpster for them" *wink wink, nudge nudge* Well Chris had decided to tear out the old yews from the front of the house around the same time I heard of Pam's good fortune (she couldn't use all the shrubs she got) so I said tear the ones on the side out as well and I put in these guys (plus one other leucothoe that is hidden by the azeala in this photo) in my new shade garden. I can't wait to see what color blooms the azeala has!!
Just before the 1st basement window I found this...
Dicentra spectabilis - Pink Bleeding Heart.
This is from another co-worker Amy last year and I transplanted it after it bloomed and it was pretty warm out. I read that they can be hard to transplant and don't like being disturbed so I had no idea if it would be back or not...so happy to see new growth. and I found it interesting that the white bleeding heart (see previous post) had new green growth and the pink bleeding heart came back red.
Let me pause and say that if it were not for Pam and Amy sharing their perennials and their knowledge with me over the past 2 years I'd either be divorced for spending too much $$ at the nurseries or I'd have one hell of a sorry ass looking yard.
Moving on, I found this little guy starting to strech his legs in the shade bed.
Polemonium reptans - Jacob's Ladder
I picked up this up last year from Point Phillips Perennials. They have decent prices, are very close and very knowledgable and Pam and Amy are close with the owners (so naturally I want to follow their lead, you can get some good deals when you become friends with nursery owners!)
Moving into the back yard and my full sun bed (I'll probably alternately refer to this as the sun bed, backyard bed or lilac bed)
It's not much to look at now, but I'm setting the stage for later posts. (the right side of the picture is a lilac shrub from my parent's friend's house and a liriopie (evergreen grass from my mom).
In the left side of the picture I think I found the beginnings of a Turtlehead
Chelone glabra
I was so afraid I killed this plant. I got 3 of them on my trip to Russells last May and waited ridiculously long to get them in the ground. I tried my best to make sure to water them (they love water!) a lot but I never got them in the ground because of our pesky sewer/backyard make over project that never really got finished. Specifically I had to wait for the retaining wall to get built and filled in. Chris had me scared that I'd end up having to move these plants when we finished grading so I never planted them. Poor excuse because I could've moved them, but alas I hope all the fretting was for not as I think/hope/pray that this means they will return this year. They have such a cool flower, I really hope they spread!
And this is where it all began! This hill on the east side of our house was such a bear to mow that the first year we moved in I started tearing the grass out. This is where the aforementioned plant sharing from Pam and Amy saved me. They pretty much gave me every plant in here and I'm so grateful!
So as of March 16th there really isn't a whole lot to see. Mostly everything in here is an herbaceous perennial (dies back to the ground every winter) I leave most of the dead stems up all winter to let the birds pick at the seed pods and add some winter interest when the snow covers them. I had just cut them back in the beginning of March. So things are just starting to poke their heads up. What little bit of green you can see is tulips and daffodils.
in the far lower corner I did notice the Obidient Plant was starting to sprout
Physostegia virginiana
Just up from that is the catmint
Nepeta xfaassenii
And continuing across the bottom of the bed I found the yarrow sprouting (fern-like leaves) with the yellow chrysanthemum (soft grey/green leaves)
Achillea millefolium - Yarrow & Chrystanthemum
Moving long the bottom of the bed towards the front of the photo
Hemerocallis - lemon yellow daylily.
One of the few things I bought for this bed. I'm not a real fan of the stella d'oro daylilys (they typical golden yellow ones) probably because so many people have them. I like this softer brighter color yellow. It makes me happy :)
And these...
These are purple asters from my little old neighbor down the street. she offered them to me while she was clearing them out of her bed, she was sick of pulling them up every year and I was rescuing planting anything I could get my hands on so I took them. that year they did great, really deep purple flowers, I was so happy. Last year they did nothing for me so if they don't bloom this year they're all goners.
And in the back yard Chris made me this lovely retaining wall.
haha. in all seriousness, we have some big plans for adding a deck or patio back here that would cover this so I was okay with him using broken pieces of our concrete sidewalk to hold back the dirt from washing down the sidewalk.
This will make a lovely new full sun bed and I can't wait to see flowers covering up spilling over the "wall" :)
And here he is, relaxing after all that hard work :) and a view looking down from our deck of the little path I threw together. This path leads through the new bed, through the "lilac" bed over to the west side shade bed.
Okay so techincally the path leads to the bird feeder pole in the lilac bed, but that's just splitting hairs I think :)
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