Spring Garden #1

After: The tulips are blooming before the daffodils. If I could time them to bloom together the yellow daffodils would add a lovely contrast with the purple tulips and the red bayberry shrubs. Maybe next year I'll find the right combination of tulips and daffodils that bloom together.

After: Early Spring. I edged this garden with Heuchera or purple palace coral bells for the front of the garden. This semi-evergreen perennial is perfect for the front of the garden. It grows in full shade, semi-shade and light shade. These were moved from a south facing full sun garden. They did ok in the full sun, but the leaves tended to get rusty spots and they weren't nearly as brilliantly purple in the bright light of a full sun garden.




The Stachys byzantina or lambs ears were planted for their soft greyish foliage that contrasts with the waxy Heuchera to edge the garden bed along the sides.

Both of these edging plants started out as 3 plants; they were propogated mostly by division. But the lamb's ears are a weed, they self seed all over the place. To keep this plant neat and tidy as an edging plant, you have to keep it from going to flower. Bees, butterflys and other assorted polinaters love the flower of the lambs ears and they will ensure that you'll never have to buy another one as long as you live. Just let lambs ears flower and you'll have plant babies all over your lawn. But, don't fret just dig them up and replant them in you garden or share them with your neighbors and friends. The folliage is striking against dark plants.
Before: What a hot ghetto mess! The lawn is in terrible shape complete with patches of brown dirt where grass should grow. The flower bed is covered in fallen leaves that were used as a natural mulch to combat the winter effects of freezing, thawing and heaving due to frost. The leaf mulch looked fine underneath 6 inches of snow, but in the warmth of the spring it's just a hot ghetto mess.