Wish List of Plants

When you want to grow a garden, you work with the space you have and plant a diversity of species accordingly.

All shady gardens are not created equal. The density and duration of light vs. darkness influence what kinds of plants can grow in a given place.

So this is a fancy way of saying I can't necessarily grow what I want in the garden, but if I work with what will grow I can have the garden I want.

I am already a big fan of hosta and fern, and have planted a number of them around the cement girl. There is also ivy planted as a ground cover and azalea planted in the wooded bed behind the cement girl and before the road.



I am thinking of adding foxglove- the tall spires have a cottage, old fashioned look. Foxgloves are bi-annuals, so it will be the second year before they flower, but they seed freely so once established I should have a nice bed.





Lily of the Valley prefers dappled shade, grows well under trees, smells like the oil I wore as a child, and promotes peace and harmony.

Torenia, sometimes called wishbone flower, is a charming annual with beautiful trumpet-shaped blooms and comes in a dark blue/purple that attracts hummingbirds.

 

 

 

Atilbe is a rugged and beautiful genus of shade lovering perennial that throw colorful spikes above divided foliage. The foliage is similar to fern, and the flowers are airy and delicate looking, and make good cut flowers.  

This wish list of plants is only the beginning. My garden will be slowing traffic by next fall.

Walkway

The course I am taking at UA and this blog are really helping me to make decisions about our front garden. Breaking the whole front into sections makes it seem manageable, and writing on here, placing sticky notes in gardening books  and pinnig pics to Pinterest has helped me match budget and dream.

One area that we are ready to move forward on is the walkway. Right now when arriving at our home a visitor must squeeze between all of our cars/boats/4-wheeler trailer to get to a short walkway next to the house connecting the driveway to the courtyard. You know, builder basic.

When we began the planning we had no real plans, just a vision of a path to the courtyard. We also had no firm budget or idea of the costs of things.

Mister wanted something made of stone, with moss growing in the cracks and a rustic and natural look.

 

 

Beautilful. Just beautiful. And very expensive. Out of our budget - our walkway would be much longer than the one shown, and of course we would want to have other large rocks laying about like in the picture. 

Then we thought about pea-gravel. It is affordable, easy to maintain, and attractive. We visited a friend who has gravel paths throughout her garden. We sat in her garden and pondered....

What the pea-gravel needed was some large rocks to make it more wow. We ruled that out because what we were really saying was we liked rocks better than gravel- but our budget didn't.

Next we thought about paving the walkway. It would lead to easy access to our courtyard and blend with the driveway. We actually like the idea of a paved walkway. With rocks.

We couldn't get away from rocks. It is more than fatuation...it is love.

Check out what our future walkway will resemble:

 

 



The slope goes downhill from our driveway to our courtyard and front door. We are going to have the flat areas paved with concrete and use rocks at the steps like in the photo above. Love it!

We plan to use the same rocks as used in the steps as a retaining wall/barrier in front of the cement girl. So excited that our front garden is coming together. I know there is nothing to show for it, but we have made a decision!

You may recall I was concerned about wheelchair access to the courtyard. We plan to widen the builder walkway next to the house so that family in wheelchairs can bypass the steps but still enter through the front door. Of course, if one wants to brave the garage that is a no step entry to our home.

I have called a three people to come out and give us quotes on doing the walkway and I have to submit a plan of the walkway to our neighborhood POA, but it feels as if we are on our way to our dream garden.

SWOT and the Weeping Holly

A good way to form a plan is to conduct a SWOT analysis. This is as true of your landscape as it is of your career. A few weeks ago I started the SWOT analysis on my garden. As it would happen, I wrote about the last two items first, making it a TOWS analysis.

Today I am sharing the second half of my analysis, the weaknesses and strengths of my garden, and I have to admit that this portion is much harder to figure out.

Weaknesses of my Garden:

I am not positive on what qualifies as a weakness in the garden, but I think poor soil quality would. We had our soil tested earlier this season and it is slightly acidic (not too bad, we do have lots of pine trees) and hasn't been tilled or amended in ages...possibly ever.

picture of soil here

Another possible weakness is that we are downhill from the road, so we have to plan carefully so that we don't create standing water or lead a creek to our front door.

Strengths of my Garden:

The strengths may be something that only we can see, like a parent seeing the potential in their child. One strenght is the large established trees- they provide shade throughout the summer, give our garden an extablished look, and provide a buffer between us and the road.

pic of trees here

Another strength is the smallness of our garden area- because we are furnishing a small space we can spend more on plants and shrubs that we really love, it won't take as many to fill the garden.

With the established trees on the North side, the house on the South side, driveway and walkway to the East and property line at the West- the future lawn is about the size of a large bedroom, the courtyard is the size of a small bedroom, and the swing area is the size of a foyer. Very easy to work- especially since I have learned to view each of these areas as seperate areas for planning instead of just a vague area "out front."

pics of future lawn area here

 

Courtyard as approached from walkway

 

 

Swing area from inside courtyard

 

No smooth segue, but in other news-
We have added a Weeping Holly to the corner of our house, near the swing. The name is really gross, but the description is hauntingly appealing.

Ilex vomitoria, Weeping Youpon Holly, makes a distinct, irregular, weeping form with its upright crooked trunks and slender, curved pendulous branches.

pic of weeping holly here

The weeping holly is evergreen and has red berries on it. I am already picturing blue birds coming to the garden this winter. We want to plant low shrubs under the double window on the front of hte house, so I measured out their future spots before planting the holly.

Lots of plans...lots of dreams...