My name is Wendy, and I'm an over-planter

It's 75% strategery, and 25% a really poor sense of dimensions. Or I might have that backwards.

That reminds me of a joke: why are women so bad a math? Punchline: because they're always being told that this [holds up hands spaced approximately 3 inches apart] is 6 inches.

I really do read the tags and carefully consider the size of each plant before I dig the hole. My issue is that I consider the size of each plant individually, rather than looking for overlapping diameters of growth. (I'm sure there's a gardenery technical term for that.)

You'd think an awareness of this would empower me with an ability to fix it, but I've come to the conclusion that it's part of my process. I will plant things too close to each other, let them fill in, and then decide what stays and what goes.

I love an exuberant garden and have an inability to leave empty spaces empty. It isn't because I don't appreciate the value of empty space, it's just because there are too many awesome plants.

Which brings me to today's garden activities. I've been trying to incorporate more dark foliage into my front bed. It gives a garden some gravitas and maturity, I think. To that end, I ordered a small tree called 'Ruby Falls' Weeping Redbud. Here's the picture from the online nursery:

Sooner Plant Farm, Ruby Falls Weeping Redbud

I know our neighbors keep commenting (positively) that my makeover has really opened up the front of the house, but I felt some height variation was in order too. So I planted this baby right here:

This necessitated moving those blue grasses around a bit, which needed to happen anyway. I also planted another 'Lafter' rose in that area (to replace the one that didn't make it back in August), and then I planted some Salvia guaranitica 'black and blue' on the edges next to the walkway.

I'm the least confident in the Salvia planting, because:

1. That area gets a lot of sun, and my experience with those is that they like filtered sunlight
2. They're ultimately too close to the rose

But right now everything looks lovely.

I planted another 'Lafter' rose (for a total of 3) over on the far right end, to replace the Atlas blue palm that died. (In my defense, I watered it the same as I did the Bismark Palm which is doing GREAT, so the blue palm can suck it.)

That picture isn't worth posting because the light was awful and my iPhone didn't do it justice, but I'll take a decent shot and post it just for record keeping. Rest assured, it's all likely too close together.

I have grand plans for that side of the house: I'm going to have that stupid giant green shrubbery pulled up and plant a Castor plant! I don't know how big it will get before winter kills it (it's an annual), but it will be a fun experiment. Let's pretend it will look like this:

Photo: Purdue University, Purdue Plant and Pest Diagnostic Laboratory

I planted another one here, just for kicks:

Forgive the ugly shadows, it was early afternoon

I moved the Agave 'Live Wires' closer to the walkway, but that thing will still overtake them if it gets as big as pictures indicate. Luckily it's easily killed if I don't like it.

THIS necessitated moving the poor germander 'Azure' yet again, but I think it's now in a permanent home. I moved another in that far right bed. I also moved the Saliva clevelandii, and I worry it will punish me for that. (I moved a lot of plants today, come to think of it....)

Ironically, my primary goal today was to plant all the irises I ordered from Schreiner's Iris Gardens. Of the 18 I ordered, I got a whopping 6 in the ground before I ran out of dirt. (I always underestimate the amount of dirt or mulch I'll need. See math joke above.)