July: New plants!

I made a secret gardening vow not to spend any money on perennials this summer. I didn't tell anybody about this vow in case I started buying plants. However, it is now mid-July and I've stuck to it so far. Except the $5 I spent on two daisies to replace the two that died over the winter. Shush, that doesn't count.

Today I planted seven wonderful new plants without breaking any vows. How did I do it, you ask? Well, I entered a contest at In The Garden Online for a $50 gift certificate from Annie's Annuals, and I won! I wandered through Annie's lovely on-line catalog, which is filled with plants not usually available here in the Midwest, and found seven that I just had to have.

The shipping cost was pretty steep, but the box arrived quickly and the quality of the packaging cannot be denied:


The plants arrived in great condition...

and with rootballs wrapped in plastic and damp paper, were very easy to remove from their pots and plant in various spots in the garden. They don't look like much yet, but just you wait...

Geranium pyrenaicum 'Bill Wallis' and Heuchera sanguinea 'White Cloud' in part shade under the viburnum


Dianthus arenarius and Campanula medium 'Deep Blue' in the part-shade north garden


Echinops ritro ruthenicus...


and Linum lewisii (blue flax) in the prairie garden


and finally, Verbena bonariensis in the foundation garden. This one is technically Zone 7 and doesn't belong in my Zone 5b garden, but I put it in a warm, protected corner on the south side of the house and hopefully it will survive the winter. Incidentally, this is the very plant I said I wanted when I entered the contest :)


Wish my new babies luck! Many many thanks to Annie's Annuals and to Colleen for making these new additions to the garden possible!

October: In a hurry

What happened to my sunny, crisp October? We seem to have zipped from balmy September straight to blustery November. There is even a touch of snow in this weekend's forecast. Snow!! I try not to be a weather whiner but this is just silly. Last weekend, I had just one day to purchase and install some late-season bargain plants (and to watch the Bears game; very important). My spring fantasies of transforming my yard into a carefully planned drift of purple salvia a la the Lurie Garden by October were distilled to their most basic essence: "Home Depot has cheap salvias. Let's buy some and stick them somewhere!" This is how most of my gardening is done so I guess it's not all that noteworthy. Plan? What plan?

No, but seriously, where to put all these salvias? With daylight waning and a lot of busy weekends ahead of me, I didn't have the luxury of pondering the decision for long.  I had decided this summer that I'm tired of the overgrown spireas in front of my garage, so I took action:

Instant garden space!  In a flurry of activity that lasted two hours, I transformed the garage garden from this:

into, well, this mess:

But somewhere in there is the groundwork for future success:  four salvias, two snowcap daisies, veronica, amsonia, and a daylily that appealed to me. Pretty much everything else was also dug up, moved, divided, or otherwise manhandled so it wouldn't feel left out. Then the sun set and the rest of the garden was spared. For now. Mwah-ha-ha.

Next year should be very interesting.

Assorted pretties from the McGarden:

Obedient plant, Physostegia virginiana - a surprise bloom, hidden under the baptisia; aster NOID

Another aster NOID, possibly ericoides; Chelone lyonii 'Hot Lips' turtlehead, still blooming happily next to the brown-eyed Susans

My one surviving mum, demonstrating just how obnoxious the spireas were getting.  This knockout shade of orange makes me so happy every time I see it.

For the record, plants I installed on October 4 or 5:
HOME DEPOT
Leucanthemum superbum Snowcap Shasta daisy (1, divided)
Salvia nemorosa East friesland
Salvia nemorosa May Night (x2)
Salvia nemorosa Marcus
Veronica 'Goodness Grows'
Hemerocallis Pardon Me
Asclepias tuberosa butterfly weed (in wayback)
PRAIRIE NURSERY (wayback garden)
Eryngium yuccifolium, rattlesnake master
Amsonia hubrichtii (garage)
Ruellia humilis
Ex-aster novae-angliae
AMERICAN MEADOWS (front garden)
Hepatica
Bloodroot
Bluebells
Asarum/wild ginger
FROM GRANDMA'S GARDEN:
white irises (foundation garden)
FARMER'S MARKET (late september sometime)
Tricyrtis 'Empress' (south edge border)