Around the House

Our house was moved out of the floodplain two years ago, and so these beds around the house are relatively new. I had saved a lot of the plants from the old beds around the house to put in these new beds, along with seedlings, divisions, and of course, new acquisitions! These pictures were taken over the last month.

In front of the house there is 'Pee Wee' oakleaf hydrangea with an underplanting of white wood aster and catmint and a 'Potter's Purple' butterfly bush on the northwest corner. The hydrangea didn't do much at first, (I thought of replacing them with Virginia sweetspire) but they woke up and were full of flowers late this year. This bed is very straightforward, but with a lot going on everywhere else, I wanted this bed to be simple.

I have Buddleia all around the house. The south and west sides of the house are more plain than the front and east side (with the chimney), so I wanted fast-growing shrubs, and I love purple, so Buddleia seemed a natural choice.

There's a 'Petit Indigo' by the porch screen door; this and 'Potter's Purple' perfumes the entire back porch.

Looking through a 'Potter's Purple' on the west side of the house, down the path where we lead the horses to pasture. In the center and right of the picture is the ditch that runs behind the big perennial bed and by the old house site, under the grass road and by one of the horse pastures... eventually it goes to Middle Creek over a quarter of a mile away. I have planted some seedling sweet bay, swamp roses, American snowbell seedlings and Louisiana iris, as well as clearing around existing Aronia, Virginia sweetspire, and sweet pepperbush. In the foreground, where the ditch is broad, shallow and sunny, it's currently full of marsh bulrush, also known as teddy-bear paws.

A view from the front porch of the ditch and big perennial bed, as well as the beginnings of new beds. I will start putting plants into the new beds in Sept./October.

Most of those plants will come from here, the plant nursery:

Commuter daylilies (H. citrina), 'Bleu Celeste', purple coneflower, spiderwort and Mexican feather grass. In the middle is summer phlox, to the right blue mist shrub, and in the very back and to the right hibiscus and seashore mallow.

Standing in the parking area on the east side of the house, looking south -- here you can see how tall the commuter daylilies are compared to 'Lion in Winter'. They have a wonderful fragrance, especially early in the evening. These were at their peak about a month ago.

A seedling hibiscus. I think one of the parents is 'Moy Grande' or 'Anne Arundel'. At first I didn't think I was going to see any blooms. The Japanese beetles were eating all of the buds before they could even open! Then the hibiscus got ahead of the beetles and put on a good show.

Looking north. These are the daylilies 'Bali Watercolor', 'Meriam White', 'Buttered Popcorn', a noid pink, and 'Lavender Deal'.

Daylily 'Always Baroque' with commuter daylilies, purple coneflower and 'Buttered Popcorn'.

'Buttered Popcorn' with Penstemon 'Midnight' and a passalong Achillea millefolium

Veronica 'Sunny Border Blue'

Trailing Heliotrope

Here is a shot taken while standing in the middle of the garden east of the house, looking down the hill at the vegetable garden and big perennial bed. Part of this bed still looks new, and is mulched with hay to keep down the bermudagrass while everything else matures.

There is a young 'Crepuscule' and an 'Alchymist' rose planted on each side of the trellis. I can't wait until those get some size. We had 'Alchymist' growing over the back door of our apartment when we lived in Chapel Hill. The flowers are full swirls of yellow, pink and apricot and are just a thing of beauty.

There's an 'Archduke Charles' and a shrub 'Old Blush' in the little bed in front of the trellis. I love those roses, but so does whatever is eating these along with the 'Climbing Old Blush', so likely I will move the 'Old Blush' to a more inconspicuous spot and put a rugosa there in the fall.

The bright pink phlox is Phlox paniculata 'Robert Poore'.

Daylily 'Lavender Deal'

Daylily 'Beautiful Edgings'