This is my newest project. Well, one of the two…or twenty! I’m still on the veggie fence and new bed but my workers have abandoned me for a few days. They’ll be back, but since I can’t plant my vegetable garden yet, I’ve turned my sights elsewhere.

These photos are at the end of the river rock path that runs along the side of the house. This whole area is at the end of our driveway and before our septic field, which is just a grassy area. This is a nice, sunny hole in the woods and I got a vision last summer to plant wildflowers and cutting flowers here. The statue I bought last week is the anchor for this area, and I’ve decided to name her, Artemis! Thanks to Annie, at The Transplantable Rose, for the idea. It was hard to pick – thanks to everyone for giving me lots of great suggestions — it was tough to decide. Flora ran a close second – thanks also to Kate at Kate Smudges in Earth, Paint and Life, for the suggestion.

So, yesterday I bought some larkspur and society garlic (to deter the deer) and some blackfoot daisies and some corralberry to frame the area and feed the birds. I bought those gigantic sunflowers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center last summer and planted them here and they will be back. I’ve also sprinkled some seeds here from my other native plants over the last year. I’m going to leave these new plants sitting here and ponder them for a while. Isn’t that part of gardening, pondering? I tend to be impulsive in the garden (and in life, let’s be honest, here!) so I’m trying to think this through for a change.

For some strange reason, I don’t usually draw out landscape design plans for myself, I just start throwing stuff in the ground. Generally, that works for me. But I will also be pulling OUT 4-5 plants from the front bed for exactly that reason — I over planted the summer before last. That wouldn’t have happened if I’d drawn the design out formally because I would have seen clearly that there was too much material there. But there was a sale at the old Marbridge farms and I went nuts. So, now I get to dig it back up and guess where it’s going? The edges of this new bed! Irony. And, I’m kind of an old dog — hard to teach me new tricks.


These little fillers will look nice in front of the lantana and guara and ferns when they come back in.

It’s drizzling and overcast and we have a 30% chance of rain today, so I’m not sure I will get these plants in the ground. But, with the moisture, they’ll be happy outside anyway.