... and Lows

This is a part of the garden I'm currently referring to as... Cambodia.

This is a charming little still life I call:  Morning Glory Strangling Foxglove.

And this one, I call:  Once, Russian Sage:  Now, Struggling with Glory:

And, well, tonight I'll take some pruning challenge pictures.

Highs (Lows to follow)

Two summers ago, I ripped almost everything out of the jungle out by the Hilton and started over with grasses, shrubs, the New York Times and mulch to cover it.  I'm no longer interested in anything out there unless I can see it from the house.

It's actually looking pretty good now.

The astilbe is passed now, but there are two great masses of it that looked great from the second story window next to the zebra grass and buddleia:

And then there are bits inspired by Bold Romantic Gardens:

I'm at the end of the foxgloves -- the tall and dramatic ones are past, and just the shorter ones that get less sun remain.  I think foxgloves are my favorite of all the flowers in the garden.  I love the way they appear in places I'd never have planned, but once they're there.... I'm very glad for nature's design assistance:

And the courtyard is looking cottage-y and nice:

You get what you pay for..., continued...

This is one of three equally healthy variegated pieris ($12ish or so, half price from the Medium Expensive Nursery):

These are the four Blue Angel (? something like that) hydrangea (also $12ish or so, half price from MEN) -- they've been the most gratifying part of the garden for the last several weeks:

This is the very last of my spirea in bloom, but I have to say: spirea love my yard.  They self-seed all over the place, both the green shown herein and a lovely gold that I have all over the place, and I yank them out by the roots and transplant them into TOTALLY FREE Shrub lines like this one:

Count my blessings, eh?

Here's another of the variegated pieris, along with some lovely Ostrich ferns given by my friend Ruth, and one of the golden spirea ripped out of some spot it had self-seeded, and a Canadian fern from my friend Kristina, plus yet another patch of heuchera (Walmart, $6 each) that I'm trying, once again, to get going.  I like the way the textures and colors look together:

And this is a bit of variegated Solomon's seal, also courtesy of Ruth, along with some dying-back bleeding heart (toxic to deer, bless its discrete golden little heart; and which also self-propagates all over the property) and a bunch of weeds:

Now I'll do one last post of Garden Highs and Lows, and then punch out for the day.

You get what you pay for...

The oak leaf hydrangea ($20, Medium Expensive Nursery) didn't make it all all, nor some other white snowball type (also $20, MEN).

A puffball blue one (Home Depot, $8) was also decimated, but it's now bravely attempting a comeback:

  

The variegated euonymous (WalMart, $6) was chewed right down to the roots, but it's come back just fine:

And then of course there's the legendary Ilex Party Boy (WalMart, $6), enthusiasticallly fertilizing the two Dragon Ladies twenty times his size who live way across the yard:

I have decided to count the blueberries (Stop & Shop, $14) as a qualified success.  Yes, the deer ate all the berries last year; and yes, they ate all but about 20 this year.  However, the bushes themselves are hanging in there; and I've decided to plant more next year, along with more salvia and maybe some Russian sage as well to hang over them fragrantly and dissuade the deer; and cover the whole line with nets during picking season.  Because they're awfully pretty Shrubs and it is awfully fun to pick berries, even if I don't, strictly speaking, believe in fussing with nets.

And you just can't kill pieris, even if you're a deer.  (Tomorrow's post will focus exclusively on my Little Pieris of Horrors, to get Dr. K's advice on pruning...)

 

It looks like 5 pictures a post is about what blogspot will allow me; so I'll do a third with the Unqualified Successes....

Survival of the fittest...

I wish now I had chronicled earlier, but that's how it goes.  It turns out that there is an inverse relationship between how much money I spent in the Year of the Shrub vs. their survival rates over the Extended All You Can Eat Salad Bar, I mean, winter, of 2008-2009.

Here's the $65 clethra I got at the expensive nursery:

Here's the new $45 clethra I got this year from the only-medium-expensive nursery to try again.  Because I do want clethra.

Here's one of several leucoethe from the medium-expensive nursery:

And here's one of several soft-leaf holly from the medium-expensive nursery (I thought holly was poisonous, for crying out loud!!!):

Here's a sampling of the rhododendron:

 Now, the careful (and optimistic) observer will note that many -- indeed, most -- of these Shrubs are, in the immortal words of Monty Python, not quite dead yet...  And that is, indeed, the position I'm taking.   For now, at least.

It also turns out that Blogspot has revised its upload parameters such that I can no longer put 120 photos on one post.  So now I'll do the another, with cheaper Shrubs that fared somewhat better.  It will, unfortunately, come out so that it will be read *first* because that too is how blogspot works.  So it goes.