New bed - so close!

One of my favorite things about Jason is that he makes my obsessing seem totally normal. That means while I'm in bed feeling crappy he's still out working on the new bed, so we're almost done!

He surprised me yesterday with 2 Musa Basjoo Bananas, one Purple Prince Pennisetum grass, and one Spanish Dagger!

He also planted the rest of the plants we had:

• Colocasia Illustris
• John Fannick Phlox
• Yuccas
• Pindo Palms
• Orange Bulbine
• Salvia nemorosa 'Amethyst'

We just have one spot left; I'm getting a rose, 'Reine des Violettes':

p.s.

My 'Lafter' roses in the center bed have powdery mildew on a couple of leaves. They'd better shape up or they're out!

Yeah, I could spray, but life's busy enough as it is and I'm not going to reward them for being wimps: the other roses in the garden don't have it.

Progress on the new bed

We aren't finished, but we made really good progress on the new bed today. We sifted (literally) through the dirt/grass mixture Jason dug out so we didn't have to buy as many bags of dirt, and then we added 7 bags of Hill Country Garden Soil.

The damp soil slowed us down: it was like digging through a mixture of molasses and flour. It stuck to our shoes, the shovel, itself. Jason had to dig most of the holes, I just didn't have enough weight to put behind it and I'm not exactly a 90 lbs weakling. I'd like to have waited until things dried out a bit more but I use the time I have!

Here's the layout we determined:

We took a break to go to Hill Country Water Gardens & Nursery in Cedar Park and bought a small fountain! We were pretty happy to find something we liked that is proportional to the size of the bed and wallet-friendly.

Here's what it looked like when we quit for the night. We (mostly Jason) got the palms, New Zealand Flax, 'Valentine' roses, Lamb's Ear and Canna Wyoming planted.

I poached my own Canna: I've had some in the back left corner of the large bed for the last 2 years and they haven't had the good sense to die, so I'm going to see if they like this location better. They look like this:

Did I mention the soil was horrible to dig in?

Bush Germander 'Azure'

It's time this plant got more attention.

A.K.A Teucrium fruticans 'Azureum'

They really are that beautiful.

You may not be lucky enough to find one in a nursery, but if you do buy three and plant them. After they're established you can ignore them for everything except the annual cleaning up, and you'll still be graced with gorgeous blue flowers on a naturally mounded shrub.

My plants will be happy...

after all this rain. All except my Crape Myrtles, which will get powdery mildew. Oh wait, they get that anyway.

Maybe my lawn will come back, or at least what's left after I reclaimed some more of it for a new planting bed:

What?!?! Jason needed palms, I needed roses, the former lawn now serves a higher purpose. Everybody wins.

Garden additions in 2010 (so far)

I've decided three things this Spring:

1. I'm going to plant more of what works
2. I miss the smell of roses
3. Mass plantings are always the way to go. Buy 3+ or go home.

So far I've added:

• 3 Chrysler Imperial rose - I'm a little worried about black spot but it's worth a shot. The red-purple blooms are huge, intensely fragrant and beautiful
• 4 Bush Germander 'Azure' - 2 in the back bed on the left, 3 in the middle of the back bed. They're uninteresting during most of the season, but the intense blue blooms in Winter and early Spring make up for it
• 3 more Salvia Leucantha - they're gorgeous in a mass planting, so that's what I'm going for
• 1 Colette Climbing Rose - it's a peachy pink and smells wonderful!
• More Aloe Striata pups - the existing plants keep producing pups, so I'll keep planting them!
• 4 dwarf Salvia Leucantha - I put them next to the other 3 in the center bed.
• 1 Buddleia Nanho Blue - for the center bed, to replace the Ellen's Blue that just didn't love me as much as I loved it.
• 2 Lonicera sempervirens, aka Honeysuckle vine - for the trellis that hides the AC unit

*Disclaimer: it doesn't look like this yet. I got this picture off the interweb.