The Front Garden

I go on and on in this post, describing our garden. It's partly for my personal future benefit because over the long winter I will forget much of it. Don't feel obliged to linger.

Yesterday, I took a few quick snaps of our garden what passes for our garden at the front. It was quite sunny, and I could barely see the LCD screen, but y'know . . .

In addition to the garden itself, we have mulched over most of the space that isn't actual garden because growing grass is not for the the amateur around here. The mulch goes all of the way to the back, leaving only a little in the front. Keep in mind that our property is to the right, the neighbours' to the left. They have done nothing. Around the tree, however, our garden extends to their side.

From the above, you can see the layout, such as it is. We have a border by the driveway and an area around the tree. In the border, near to the sidewalk, there is a pot of geraniums and petunias. Up the side there are several varieties of yellow daylilies that thrive in the awful soil there. The daylilies are almost done blooming. To my shame, I haven't deadheaded yet although Sue has done some in passing. They also need to be divided, but alas . . .

In the centre part around the tree, there are three pots of white begonias at the front and one dwarf phlox on the extreme right. We have had ground phlox (sublata) at the front but recently pulled the scrawny remainder after years of trying. Even though I try to improve the soil in the hole where I plant, it is extremely poor underneath. Bedrock is near the surface hereabouts. Where we have the one white phlox, I once tried to grow a row, but only the one plant remains. We have tried other plants at times, such as penstemon, but none have done well. So, for now at least, we make do with pots of annuals.

Above, Sue walked into the photo and is watering the star of this year's garden. a pot of impatiens. We didn't even purchase this ourselves; daughter picked it up for us. As glorious as it looks, the container is small, so Sue (and sometimes, I, under her instructions because I never seldom think of it) water frequently.

Here is a closeup of the impatiens.

Also in the second photo, above, you can see echinacea to the left. They also extend around the back where they were originally planted. The echinacea is one plant that does well enough for us and it has extended itself, with some help, along the left side after the originals failed.

This is taken from the back of the garden, looking toward the street.

So, daylilies and echinacea are pretty well all that remains from the various perennials that we planted years ago. I think it has been the growth of the tree and the subsequent increase in shade that has done in some of the original plants, like the very pretty penstemon that we once had, and I even forget the other flower that didn't last. They did well enough for a few years, but then the tree did what trees do, and grew to cast more shade.

What you can't see is that behind the echinacea (or in front if you were looking form the street, where it is is quite shady, we have planted some shade plants such as heuchera and hostas. We would probably have made more additions this year, had it not been for the pandemic which caused us to avoid nurseries for the most part. The only new plant has been a single hosta which I planted  a little late when I finally felt brave enough to go to the nursery.

Finally, for now, because I have been incomplete in my picture-taking although at the same time I have prattled on at length, I show you the strip of petunias between the walk the driveway. The crazy thing is that many of these flowers are volunteers from last years flowers.

As hard as it is to believe, we didn't plant any white this year, and some of the other darker flowers are also volunteers. The bedraggled looking plant to the extreme left is a chive that we brought across province 15 years ago, It originally came from a beloved neighbour's garden, so it has history and causes nostalgic feelings.

It is almost 7AM; fall is in the air, for it is still only 13C/55F, and I have been forced to don a sweatshirt over my pjs. However, I must now put on normal clothes, for it is time to take out the trash.