I am always amazed by how quickly a new garden fills in. Year one is always difficult – the garden is so sparse that I freely admit to over-planting. But the reward comes in year two.
Here is my foundation garden last year at about this time:
And here it is this year:
So rewarding! Everything has filled in so nicely. The red Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) above looks so much better than last year, when it just flopped over onto the ground. I suppose it didn’t take the stress of planting well, though it has clearly recovered. Another view:
I only lost two plants, both of them butterfly weed, though I don’t think butterfly weed is a difficult plant. One of them looked sickly almost from the time I planted it last year – I didn’t expect it to survive the winter and it didn’t. The other I planted too close to the bird feeder – I think it was trampled by squirrels and I know it was stepped on by garden visitors. I would have given up as well.
Blooming now are blue-eyed grass, mouse-ear coreopsis, and the cranesbill, beardtongue and viburnum in the photos above. The blue-eyed grass and coreopsis started blooming at the end of May/beginning of June and are still at it, the others just began blooming in the last week. A friend gave me the coreopsis last year, so this is the first time I’ve seen it in bloom and it is a stunner. I love the rich gold flowers, and will need a few more for some much needed late spring/early summer color:
The blue-eyed grass is one of my favorites. I purchased three of the variety ‘Lucerne’ last year and they bloomed just about all summer long. Blue-eyed grass is a type of iris, and I’ve actually spotted two or three of the native plant elsewhere on our property! I moved one to our garden to see how it does since it was lost in the grass of our yard. I believe the species has a much shorter blooming period than ‘Lucerne,’ but reseed more readily.
The butterfly weed and New Jersey tea are getting close to blooming – next week will be colorful:
