Hostas and Heuchera
I have to giggle when people are talking about their gardens and complaining and saying that their garden is “too green.”
Why? Because it begs the question of is your garden too green or just too one shade of green?
Tonality. They need tonality.
There are so many shades and tones and variations of green in the garden that even in the shade garden you get color and contrast. You just have to work for it a little bit.
This beautiful red Japanese Maple is glorious now!
I have spent years looking at other people’s gardens and going through gardening books and even saving things on Pinterest, but there are so many shades of green, like there is a rainbow of other colors.
I have had to get creative with my greens because a good portion of our property is woodland and shade gardens. Along the way I have also discovered plants with other kinds of leaves – reds, variegated green and white, variegated yellow and green and so on. For example there is nothing better than the deep crazy red of a Japanese maple.
This week all of my azaleas have basically popped except for some of the deciduous and native azaleas which will bloom in a couple of weeks. The azaleas are providing quite the show this year, and it’s lovely.
My new and bare root roses are also doing well. The one in the photo with a little pink bud is a found rose that came from the Antique Rose Emporium in Texas. It’s called Caldwell Pink after the town it was discovered in. The other rose pictured is one of my new David Austins.
Not something that I have found puzzling since spring began is the die back on my dogwood shrubs. I have a lot of them. Variegated green and white red twig, red twig with solid green leaves, yellow twig, variegated yellow and green leaves and so on.
Every single one of my dogwood shrubs lost a lot of branches over the winter. They do not seem to have a pest, there are no borer holes, so I just cut off the dead stuff and will hope for the best.
Now one thing I’m really happy about is the fig tree I planted on a whim last year I thought was a goner. Today when I checked, it was sending up nice strong shoots from the base. The photo is right above this paragraph. The fig is Chicago Hardy.
Today I was also forced to give my Miss Kim lilacs a trim around the stems which are budding and flowering. I had to. These lilacs have turned into monsters this year. It’s like I never trimmed them ever before and they were so out of control I had to shape them a little.
Of course when I was doing that I found poison ivy. I am really getting sick of poison ivy this spring.
Today was a close call because I didn’t have gardening gloves on. And yes I will spray poison ivy with a poison ivy herbicide. I’m very allergic to it so I don’t screw around. And poison ivy, annoyingly enough, is popping up in places where it has never been before.
OK I am going back to look at my garden again. I’m really enjoying it this year so far. It’s nice to see where the fruits of my labor are starting to really come through. That is the thing about gardening— it’s your creation, and it is so rewarding when you have an idea and a couple years down the road you can see how your idea is literally coming to life!
My garden is my artistic canvas! Thanks for stopping by!
Poison Ivy “Rat Bastardous” (I named it)