One of the benefits of a Midwest garden is the beauty each season brings. Here’s a look back at one garden bed as it appeared throughout 2014.

Late winter 2013 and spring can’t get here soon enough.

The newly planted foxglove provided lots to look at as the garden got under way in spring. I love the maroon shades of the maple with the blue of the spruce

Happy summer hydrangea. Little Lamb and Little Lime wind throughout the bed.

I underestimated just how many plants I will need and how long it will take to fill in this bed. I also miscalculated on how large this penstemon would get. I moved her to the back in the fall.

The gayfeather returned this year…I still never really believe the stuff I put in the year before will come back.

A close up of texture and shapes. To keep in the garden or snip to add to a vase?

Anchoring the south edge of the patio bed, the rudbeckia is a profusion of blooms in the hottest month of the summer.

As summer give way to autumn, the rusty brown plumes on this perennial grass contrast well with the blue spruce

The grasses plumes drape gracefully under the weight of a wet snow.

The muted tones of fall beneath a blanket of snow: Harvest brown foliage and faded hydrangea blooms and the tall maple at the top of the bed; maroon leaves on the Japanese maple; and the tall pine in my neighbor’s yard.
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Welcome to the Arch City Gardener. My name is Mimi and I started this blog to share my journeys in learning to garden in St. Louis County, Missouri and learn more from my readers who garden. Thanks for reading The Arch City Gardener.
December 28, 2014 at 7:34 pm
I enjoy seeing the progress of your garden! I think I had some of that Huskers Red Penstemon (I laughed out loud when you wrote I never truly believe stuff will come back …), but it I think has been beaten out by the Black Eyed Susan gang in my garden which comes back with a vengeance each year. I will have to plant some more – safely away from the gang – because it is beautiful! I am fortunate to have migrated this year but I usually stare out frosty windows asking myself how will anything live to come back in the garden in spring?
December 29, 2014 at 11:57 pm
Thanks for your note and thanks for reading. That bunch of Black Eyed Susan’s have been in that spot for 2 summers and I have already divided it liberally! It is vigorous and wants to take over, but I love the way it looks. The Husker Red really took me by surprise when it got so large. The back yard is a never ending experiment.
January 2, 2015 at 8:24 pm
Nice! I like your garden, especailly the curving path and round patio (we just got a round patio installed), the big patch of Rudbeckia, and the patch of Smooth Penstemon. Your Liatris was growing very nicely for you, mine always flops.
January 4, 2015 at 4:51 am
Thanks. The Listeria is a vAriety thAt is not supposed to flop. It was the to its promise.