Yet another plan for a front yard garden

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 5:34 pm

Why, oh why, can't I shut off the garden planning portion of my mind? It gets me into more trouble, keeps me too busy, sore of muscle and at the same time is the major source of frustration in my life cause I can't do it all.

The bed I started last spring will be added to over the next couple of weeks, lots of plants to move from the back yard still. The Cannas need to be planted and the rain board installed. Then it will be time to watch it fill in as the weather warms up and add a small fence on the further side just to define the area.

The new shade garden is where it will stay for a while too. I can add potted shade plants over the season as I find them but it will be next year, at least, before anything will be planted in the ground.

Now that we are getting some much needed rain, the black clay will be workable sometime next week and moving the Buddleia, Sages, etc. can begin. And we can get the Texas Lilac Vitex and Viburnum Dentatum in the ground to act as 'mail carrier blockers'. The fencing comes next month.

So last night I was looking thru yet another plant catalog that had come in that days mail, this time from High Country Gardens which specializes in Xericape plants and the flash of inspiration that struck me was so bright it hurt my eyes and will eventually hurt my knees, hands and back too.

There is an area out front that never feels the touch of water from the garden hose, it gets wet only when it rains, it is a royal pain in the tushie to mow and edge and is generally ignored in landscape/gardening plans by one and all.....ours does happen to contain two really large Crepe Myrtle trees - one on either end, planted by the previous owner many years ago. That strip of land is the one between the sidewalk and the curb, it is 6.5 feet x roughly 32 feet between the trees.

I was finding so, so many possibilities in that catalog for that strip of forgotten land and quietly moaning about how much it was going to cost to get this done the way I was picturing it in my head.
Then I was struck by yet another blinding flash of inspiration, dang don't those things hurt when you are not used to getting two in one evening.

I have many of the recommended Xeriscape plants in my back yard already and they are looking for a new home out front.
I have an.....
Achillea - Yarrow 'Paprika',
Black and Blue Salvia,
Artemesia -'Powis Castle',
4 Caryopteris clandonensis 'Longwood Blue', Solidago canadensis,
Moonbeam Coreopsis,
some quickly spreading Oenothera speciosus 'Rosea' (Pink Evening Primrose) that would love to be turned loose in the area
and several Crocosmia - 'Emily McKenzie' bulbs that are not doing well where I planted them last year
I have already bought several pots of Creeping Phlox 'Emerald Blue' to plant on the edge between one of the trees and our driveway.

So my time next week is appropriated for the work but this week while it is too wet to be out there I really need to figure out where each plant will go....or I could just clear a spot and bring a plant from the back and repeat until the space is filled. Hopefully there will be another flash of inspiration during the planning phase because I suck at planning things out.

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Droopy wrote on Wed Mar 11, 2009 7:04 pm:

Your blog entries make me double up with the belly ache I get from laughing. I so understand your predicament, toni. I think your xeriscape garden will be fabulous. *Lending a pair of not-hurting knees*

I am quietly hoping I won't have any flashes at all this season, since my darling husband has had a couple already, and guess who'll be doing the digging?