New Grasses

I had planted some cottoneaster shrubs in this area and our heavy snowfall last winter just crushed them!  So I decided to replace them with a tall grass - Molinia Skyracer. (Circled in orange.) It can get 8 to 9 feet tall, which will be a great vertical accent in this area, and it will help to bring the scale of the garage down. (It is a tall garage!)


The shrubs will get a new home  - one where they won't get such heavy snow piled on them!

Baptista - New and Old

This is a new variety of baptista - I think it is Twilight Prairieblues.  It has a ton of blooms and is a vase-shaped plant.

This is the common variety of baptista - it doesn't have as many blooms.  They are a darker purple than the new variety.  Baptistas get to be quite large - plan to have about 6 feet of space in the garden for them.  They don't like to be moved!  After they are done blooming, the foliage stays in a nice mounded shape. 

 

Blooming Irises

Wow!  This two-toned iris is beautiful!  This area has a bit of a mix of different colors (which you can't see in this picture).  I am going to mark the other colored ones so that I can move them out.  I have some green garden tape that I'll write on with a sharpie and tie around the leaves - hope that works!!

Blue spruce

I just love the soft blue of blue globe spruce in the spring!  They contrast so well with all of the fresh green foliage around them.

Purple tulips

These purple tulips are almost done blooming - but still pretty!

Last fall, I planted amsonia hubrichtii in this bed - you can see one of them in front of the tulips.  They have a small blue flower, and in the fall they are a beautiful yellow.

New Clematis

Earlier this spring, a friend and I took a road trip to Faribault - there is a nursery there that specializes in clematis - Donahue Greenhouse.  I brought home a bunch - these two are Hagley Hybrid and Viticella, Venosa, Violacia.  I'll post more pictures as the others start blooming.  I've had good luck with clematis on the east side of the house - that's where these are.  And they like their roots cool, so I'll mulch or place a plant so that it shades their roots. 


Tulips and dogwood

This planting area is blooming with red and white tulips - I added impatients last week.  They'll give nice color all summer.






This Golden Shadows dogwood is in the same bed - you just can't see the retaining wall.  Check out our new rain barrel - we added one at the front of this bed, too. 


I still need to get this big bed mulched!