Life in the backyard is abuzz with growth! Just one month ago, perennials were just beginning to push their way through the soil. Take a look and see for yourself the plant progress in my St. Louis garden.
This bed beneath the family room window and bordering the patio, looked rather barren on March 29. The small bit of green is Meadow Sage.
I had yet to trim back the roses and still need to add mulch. There are four KnockOut rose shrubs in this bed, three of them planted last year. This bed faces east and gets lots of morning sun as well as sun from the south.
Mother Nature is not the only one who has been busy. I have added the rocks to better direct the drainage from the downspout, cleaned out the bed and trimmed the roses. I have added a few plants as well, although the vast majority are perennials planted over the past three years.
This is one of my favorite beds. Everything I have put in this bed has been happy, happy, happy as Phil would say on Duck Dynasty. In addition to the roses and Mianacht salvia (salvia x sylvestris), there are Cranesbill Biokova Karmina (geranium x cantabrigiense) which edge the bed. These mounding plants have wonderful year round interest, their leaves turning deep green to crimson red in the fall and winter. In early summer they are filled with small rose-hued flowers. Filling in the bed are Shasta daisy(Leucanthemum × superbum), variegated lily turf (liriope muscari), threadleaf coreopsis and new this season, Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis). I added the lady’s mantle to the north end of the bed, near the door, to bring some yellow to that end of things. I also transplanted a small and struggling shasta that had been in a bed near the fence. Anchoring the bed near the rocks on the south end is a low-to-the ground, creeping juniper (Juniperis horizontalis). This evergreen has lots of yellow in, which complements the hot pink of the roses and brightens the deep purple of the salvia.
I also like this bed because it wraps around to the south, which gets gobs of sun. It begins its southern turn where the Russian Sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) is anchored. I added two Stella D’Oro lilies(Hemerocallis) to play off the color in the juniper and contrast with the cool lavender of the Russian Sage. This small grouping is a nice segue to the south-facing part of the bed. I’ll share more of that in another post.
How’s your garden growing?
The Arch City Gardener 