Thursday, June 13, 2013

A Few Good Plants


It has been a busy spring and I haven't made time to post. I do have a lot of new design and planting projects looking fresh and not quite blog worthy yet! But here are a few good plants from my own small garden. This time of year you have to love those plants that just do their thing- without any fuss, like the illustrious Lady Bird Poppy (Papaver commutatum 'Ladybird'). I brought one small seed packet home from England, spread the seeds in fall (or spring?) and year after year they come back in the same spot. I amend the soil, dig, weed, etc. and still they return, uncomplicated and undemanding, looking lovelier and lovelier with each season. They require absolutely nothing from me- except adoration of course. It is good against the red house and with the blooming Rhododendron sucker I brought home from a job five years ago.


This is another great self sower- and another great experiment- Poached Egg or Limnanthes douglasii. This packet of seeds I sowed in spring in the greenhouse and then planted out. It looked pretty sad that first year- a very small plant with a spindly flower that immediately went to seed. I thought nothing of it until it showed itself again the following year in the same spot- this time the plants were four times the size, creating a lovely carpeting ground cover with these extremely cheery flowers in mid spring. The plant looks a bit ragged now- it must be slightly short lived, but I will let it sow itself again for next year.

 



Here is a bulb I bought on a whim and planted quickly, (somewhere, anywhere!) this fall, Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus. I have never grown Glads before, but thought a wintering over species looked pretty good! I had no idea what it was as it came out of the ground- its leaves looking a bit like Crocosmia- until it bloomed. I love that I unknowingly planted it with that hot red-pink Dianthus deltoides 'Maiden Pink.' So hot, so pink!




A quick shot of one area in a late spring sunset. This area is a dense mat of ground covers, but with the bronze fronds of Dryopteris erythrosora poking up through.


Seen here with a purple Camasia and a healthy looking weed!