Poor Little Lamb

This little lamb has lost its way...

Garden blogs are filled with beautiful photos, but it's not all sunshine and roses out there.

Here's a pic of lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina) looking terribly bedraggled by the end of winter. I wish I knew the best way to prune out the dead, disfigured foliage, which is intermixed with fresh, healthy leaves.

Should I just raze the whole thing to the ground? The foliage is so thick and deceptively tough that it's not easy to prune, even with a hedge clipper.

If I leave it alone, I know that eventually the new growth will camouflage the mess beneath, but then I worry that the mass of dead foliage will impede air circulation and water penetration.

UPDATE - I ended up removing lamb's ear from the garden. It looked beautiful from spring to autumn, but just awful in the winter. The dead foliage was persistent, so that after a while, even the fresh new foliage was growing on a mound of dead and decaying gunk underneath. In addition to the cultivar, I got the straight species, which spread much faster and had lovely flowers with a long bloom season that attracted lots of bumble bees. Unfortunately, the flowers led to a plethora of seedlings in the immediate vicinity of the mother plant. If the old foliage decayed completely over the winter and/or if the plant didn't spread so quickly, I might have kept it. It's rock solid in the heat and didn't seem to have too many problems with our humidity. But I just couldn't deal with the old foliage and its spreading ways. Plus it's a non-native. Plus I didn't like the scent of the crushed foliage when I did try to clean it up at the end of the winter. Yuck. So... I had to give it the heave-ho.

There are other evergreen or semi-evergreen perennials that don't look their best in Middle Tennessee by the end of winter. Ajuga reptans (bugleweed) comes to mind. But the damaged, dead and dying foliage of the low-growing bugleweed seems to disintegrate to the point where the build-up of rotting foliage doesn't cause the same aesthetic issues as with lamb's ear.

Meanwhile, Ajuga genevensis (Geneva bugleweed) may even put start putting out a few cheerful blue flowers at the beginning of March. A hint of things to come...

Eight Top Performers from 2013: Creeping Raspberry, Aucuba, Camellias and More!

Apologies for the recent silence.

I was traveling for a while and then sank into a curmudgeonly funk due to November's extraordinarily cold weather.

Having shaken off that funk, this feels like a good time to look back on some of the lessons learned from 2013. I'll start by looking at the best performers - either new discoveries or proven favorites.

Creeping Raspberry

Rubus calycinoides, Creeping Raspberry - Winner, especially in sunny situations. As you can see from the photo above, Creeping Raspberry blankets the ground, preventing weeds, but so far it has not displayed any tendency to spread out of control. (Everything I've read about this plant is that it spreads through above-ground runners, not below-ground roots, so it seems unlikely that the plant would travel underground and pop up feet away, as can happen with other sneaky groundcovers like Blue Star Creeper.) Note that this photo, like the others below, was taken a few weeks ago. Since then, cold temperatures have added much more reddish tones to the plant's leaves. I'm looking forward to seeing the changeover from old to new leaves in the spring and also to seeing what this plant is capable of doing in 2014. Indeed, I'm happy enough with this plant that I plan to add several more specimens in the spring. After that, I imagine I'll be able to separate rooted runners and propagate it within the garden and should not need to buy any more for the foreseeable future. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed for flowers and berries next year, but maybe my hopes are too high in that department.

UPDATE 4/2017 - I ended up removing creeping raspberry from the garden in 2015. See this post to read why it got the heave-ho. (I should say that even though it was a royal pain to dig up and remove creeping raspberry, at least removal was just a one-time job. It didn't try to return from any rootlets like Ajuga, hardy blue plumbago and bloody geranium tend to do.)

Ajuga genevensis

Ajuga reptans "Burgundy Glow"

Ajuga - Winner (mostly), Ajuga is an unpredictable plant. In one place, it seems to have petered out. Perhaps it got too much shade? But most of the others I've scattered around the garden are thriving, especially in partial sun settings, with one doing well even in full sun. My favorite may be Ajuga genevensis, it's not variegated or flashy, but it does produce a dense, low carpet of pleasant green leaves. Ajuga genevensis also seems to hold up to cold temperatures better Ajuga reptans. So why is the genevensis variety so much harder to find in nurseries and catalogs??

The purplish ajugas like Burgundy Glow are beautiful, but they do seem to have a tendency to revert to a darker-leaved plant, so you may have to keep a sharp eye out for those reverts and remove or transplant them if you want to keep a patch consistently purple. I like that ajuga is evergreen in zone 6-7, although it does get tattered over winter. I like the springtime flowers. I like that it seems relatively tough and spreads at a moderate, but not ridiculous pace. I like that it seems relatively easy to uproot and keep in bounds if necessary. My goal in the future is to have mostly plants as groundcover and not much mulch. I see groundcovers like ajuga and creeping raspberry being a big part of that plan. In 2014, I'm eager to try the Chocolate Chip variety, which I hear is an outstanding ajuga.

UPDATE 4/2017 - Way too aggressive in my garden. It wants to create a monoculture (at least at ground level), it's unattractive for a good bit of the year and seems to offer very few ecosystem benefits. In my garden, Ajuga reptans does suffer random dieback sometimes, but the other species (A. genevensis and A. tenorii) seemed to thrive and spread, usually by rhizome, but occasionally also by seed. I wish I could say that I'd evicted this from the garden, but it's an ongoing effort and in some places - especially where it has insinuated itself among the roots of shrubs or other perennials - I'm not sure what to do. I can't really dig deeply in those places to remove the roots completely and spraying seems to run the risk of damaging the other plants, so I'll probably just keep pulling and pulling until the Ajuga (hopefully) gives up the ghost.

Aucuba japonica, Gold Dust Plant - Winner, planted in autumn 2012, so far my Aucuba shrub has thrived. The variegated leaves really light up a dark corner. I hope to add more Aucuba to the landscape - particularly as having multiple male and female plants would give me the hope of getting large ornamental red berries. Warning -- those berries are apparently inedible and slightly poisonous for humans, but hopefully birds would enjoy them. Note that the leaves in this photo are a bit droopy. That's just because I took the photo on a cold day. When temperatures are below freezing, Aucuba droops. Think of it as your own biological thermometer. As temps warm, the leaves perk back up. Loving this plant so far.

UPDATE 4/2017 - Still loving Aucuba. I should say that while it has done well in partial shade in my front foundation, it struggled when I tried a green-leafed variety in a more sunny, exposed setting. It also got chomped to pieces by deer when placed out in the landscape. But it's been a fantastic evergreen through heat, drought, cold, snow, ice, etc. in my east-facing foundation bed. I should really post an update photo to show what it looks like now.

Sorry I don't have a beautiful Camellia flower to show you. Many of the early-blooming ones have finished or got zapped by freezes. This Camellia japonica has not started flowering yet, but it has many fat buds that hold the promise of a beautiful show in the spring!

Camellias - Winners, with reservations. All the camellias in my garden so far have done fairly well with minimal supplemental water and just a bit of acidic fertilizer. This November, I swapped out a mildew-stricken crape myrtle and added yet another camellia - Winter's Joy. Supposedly hardy to zone 6 and with an upright, narrow growth pattern (10-12 feet high by 4-feet wide), I hope this camellia will perform as well as the others have.

But that's not to say everything is perfect with the camellias. (Has there ever been perfection in a garden since the time of Adam and Eve?)

One of the camellias I added last year dropped a lot of buds this winter in our November cold snap (lows in the teens) and barely flowered at all.  Apparently, camellias (some more than others) are susceptible to this sort of bud drop when temperatures fluctuate wildly, as they have done so far in Middle Tennessee this winter, from a low of 12 degrees Fahrenheit in November to a high of 76 degrees Fahrenheit last week.

And then there's the whole issue of zone pushing. Many camellias are only listed as being hardy to zone 8 or the warmer parts of zone 7. But there are more and more camellias - such as those in the Ice Angels(R) series - that are advertised as being hardy down to zone 6, which technically should mean that they are able to survive temperatures as low as -10 Fahrenheit. Fortunately, I have not encountered anything like those temps since I started gardening Middle TN. We're officially listed as being on the colder side of zone 7 these days (0-5 Fahrenheit maximum low temperature in an average winter), so there should be plenty of camellias that survive here.

But I have to recognize that I'm pushing zones here a bit. I'm thinking that I should look for camellias that flower either early or late - or ones that are known for having especially hardy flowerbuds. After all, I'd like to have camellias not just for their evergreen leaves (which are attractive on their own), but also for their flowers. But many of those flowers and flowerbuds will be killed by sub-freezing temperatures - certainly by temperatures in the teens or low 20s, so then I just have the sad spectacle of fallen buds or melted flowers on the stem. (As this source says, "Most blooms freeze, brown and turn to mush at about 32F.") I guess this is why I don't see many other camellias planted in my neighborhood or other Nashville area gardens. I imagine that Camellias are probably best suited for climates reliably warmer than Middle Tennessee - such as parts of the Deep South where it doesn't get to be 12 degrees in November!

That said, I still like the camellias a whole lot. If I pick the right varieties, I should be able to have a nice flower show in late autumn (October to November) and spring (March and April) even in harsh winters. And in mild winters, like the ones we had the last two years, I might even get to see flowers all winter long.

UPDATE 4/2017 - I still love the two camellias that were already planted right next to the porch steps when we bought the house. I mean, they're clearly too close to the foundation, but maybe that's why they have survived and done pretty well over the years while other camellias that I bought and tried to use in more exposed locations got blasted by cold winter winds? I like that we have both a Camellia sasanqua (blooms in late autumn, attracts honeybees) and C. japonica (does not seem as attractive to pollinators, but it does bloom for months in late winter to spring. In fact, it's just finishing up now in late April and I can see on my Instagram feed that it started blooming in February, so that's at least 8 weeks of blooms!!)

Dixie Wood Fern

Dryopteris x australis, Dixie wood fern - Winner, the books call this native fast-growing and drought-tolerant. The books would be correct (so far). This is my only fern and I'm loving it. I'd like to add more ferns, but I don't have many of the shady spots that ferns like. I planted Dixie in the spring, so this is my first winter with the plant, but since it's hardy to zone 5, I presume it will overwinter here just fine (although sadly, I don't believe it's evergreen). It's worth noting that the fronds which fell over were presumably felled by a cold snap. I imagine those fronds are dead and will eventually decay, but for now they are still green and adding a beautiful ferny presence to the garden even splayed on the ground.

UPDATE 4/2017 - Still a nice, solid performer, although the persistent old fronds are pretty messy. I guess they do decay, but slooooooowly. Honestly, I'm not that big into ferns in the garden at the moment, but I still have a few, and this is probably my least favorite at the moment. Ouch. Sorry about that, Dixie wood fern.

Coneflower seedheads

Echinacea purpurea, Purple Coneflowers - Still Winners. The coneflowers bloomed all summer and into autumn, with the clumps getting larger and more beautiful as they mature. Since I leave the seedheads for the birds, I'm starting to see more and more self-sown seedlings pop up here and there, so hopefully I'll have many more coneflowers next year. I love them for their natural beauty, plus of course for the way they attract bees and birds. This year, I also tried a trick I read on the Internet -- I cut off entire mature seedheads and buried them in various places throughout the garden beds - including in some partial shade spots. (So far, all my coneflowers are growing in very sunny settings - I'm curious to see how they'd do in a morning sun / afternoon shade situation). I'll post an update next spring as to whether this was a successful propagation technique.

UPDATE 4/2017 - Purple coneflowers perform fine in the garden. The straight species ones are dependable and come back year after year. The flowers are pretty and attract pollinators (especially bumblebees), while birds do eat the seeds from the seedheads. That said, purple coneflowers can look pretty awful in a drought, especially when growing in full sun. They seem most robust and floriferous when growing with morning sun and afternoon shade. They can seed around quite a bit (especially if you leave the seedheads standing over the winter for the the birds), but seedlings (or even established plants) are easy to pull and remove if you find yourself with too much E. purpurea.

Gaura lindheimeri 'Siskiyou Pink'

Gaura lindheimeri - Still Winners. Love, love, love the gauras. Since it didn't get too hot this year, they bloomed pretty much from late spring all the way through to autumn. The big, billowy plants attracted lots of bees, ladybugs and other beneficial insects like green lacewings, who came to feast on the many aphids this plant attracted. (If you're grossed out by aphids in the garden, Gaura might not be the best plant for you. I cut a couple sprays of flowers to take inside before I realized the stems and especially stem tips were covered in aphids camouflaged as flower buds. Yech.) I didn't treat the gauras with any insecticide or even try to wash off the aphids with water, I just let the predator bugs do their thing and they soon had the problem under control, but I think there always a few aphids on the plants throughout the summer, which actually probably was a good thing as it kept up the predator insect population enough to protect the other garden plants.

In early winter, the stems turn red and then tan. As I recall from last year, they may be a bit of a frizzled mess by spring, but for now, they still have some nice billowy presence to them - and a bit of green at the base. At a time when many other perennials have died back and annuals have plain died, it's nice to have the gaura's presence in the garden. I hope to add more, particularly full-size ones like Siskiyou Pink. Gaura has been very tough and drought-tolerant for me, plus it's survived several typically wet winters despite my heavy clay soil. Other gardeners have not been as lucky with overwintering gaura outside of its native SW climate, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that these gaura will survive for many more years. And meanwhile, a couple of the gauras have self-sowed to give me a few new seedlings, so I do have a few young next-generation plants in the garden in case the parents shuffle off this mortal coil.

UPDATE 4/2017 - My gauras proved to be short-lived perennials (typically 2-3 years?). I suspect they were killed by a combination of cold temperatures and heavy, wet clay soil. Still, I missed the pretty flowers and long bloom season and just bought a quart-size plant this year. I've tried installing it on a slope where hopefully the drainage will be a little better. We'll see if that helps.

Geranium x cantabrigiense "Biokovo"

Geranium, Cranesbills - All Winners. The Rozanne hybrids sprawled and bloomed from summer through November, while x cantabrigiense 'Biokovo' and sanguineum 'New Hampshire' were much more compact with shorter bloom periods, but beautiful foliage and generally trouble-free plants in morning sun, afternoon shade settings. I know that Rozanne will be completely herbaceous, but I'm curious to see the extent to which the others die back. So far, Biokovo is looking mostly green and beautiful as we head into mid-December! Even if all the geraniums are fully herbaceous, I still think they are wonderful perennials from spring to late autumn in zones 6-7, and I hope to add a couple more Geranium x cantabrigienses in 2014.

UPDATE 4/2017 - I did add more 'Biokovo' geraniums. They're fantastic. Truly one of my favorite, most dependable plants. I think they'd be happier in a cooler and/or shadier setting (most of them get full sun all morning and into early afternoon in the east-facing front foundation). They get a bit wilted, but hang tough through the summer. And they really shine in autumn, winter and spring. They're true evergreens, with some red leaves for bonus color. They form a relatively thick groundcover that excludes weeds, but they spread at a measured pace and are easy to remove if they stray beyond their boundaries. 'Rozanne' is also a nice plant - loooong blooming season. It's probably an amazing garden plant further north. Here, it wilts awfully bad during the summer and seems to be a little short-lived. Maybe 3-4 years? Plus it involves a little more work - benefiting from being trimmed back once or twice a year, and all the dead stems need to be pulled out in late winter (since it dies back to the ground and then comes back from the roots - or not). I do wish to retract my recommendation on G. sanguineum. This plant has turned into a bit of a nightmare. I thought it was spreading too aggressively and overwhelming other nearby plants, so I decided to rip it out. Ha. Geranium sanguineum - or bloody cranesbill - has deep, thick, red roots. They hang on touch and snap easily (at least in heavy clay soil). And the plant regrows from even small root fragments. The upshot - I've dug up certain areas oh, half-a-dozen times trying to get rid of G. sanguineum and probably will be digging all this year trying to eradicate the last remnants. Meanwhile, I've got quite a few holes and blank spaces in my garden where I can't plant anything lest I need to excavate again in a search for G. sanguineum root pieces. Ugh. Don't plant it. (Unless you're in its native range - Europe, far western parts of Asia. In that case, I guess you could plant it if you wanted a really tough, aggressive native romping through your garden.)


Stay tuned throughout the winter for more reflections on how plants performed in 2013. Here's a hint - they weren't all winners! ;-)

Groundcover Review: Ajuga, Bugleweed

The variegated ajuga in the front border mixes nicely with some Sweet Alyssum while blocking out most weeds. 

Ajuga, Bugleweed

Pros:

- Evergreen (or ever-purple or ever-variegated, depending on the variety)

- Pretty and long-lasting (at least several weeks) spikes of flowers in the springtime. UGA lists Ajuga as a good bee-forage plant, but I did not see any bees on the flowers during our (cold, wet) spring. Other sources say Ajuga can attract hummingbirds and butterflies. I didn't see any of those on the flowers either. Sigh.

- Prefers moist soil, but tolerates drought

This patch of Ajuga reptans (Bronze Beauty?) gets afternoon sun and you can see that parts of it are looking a little crispy. Ajuga genevensis seems better able to tolerate afternoon sun. So in my own experience, sun tolerance varies across different Ajuga species

- Grows in sun or shade. I have one patch growing in sun, but the patches growing in afternoon shade seem much happier.

- Does not really need any maintenance. Some sources recommend cutting back the flower stalks after the bloom is done. As far as I can tell, that's only really 'necessary' for aesthetic reasons. If you don't mind the spent bloom stalks sticking up until they fall over (and I don't) then the plant is basically zero-maintenance.

Ajuga genevensis, Carpet Bugle. Annie's Annuals says it is not stoloniferous and therefore less likely than Ajuga reptans to spread out of control. (Of course, Annie's also says the plant will flower all summer, which ours does not do, so perhaps the summer blooms are a California thing or maybe it's just that YMMV...)

- Spreads pretty quickly. I could see Ajuga perhaps working in combination with Sweet Woodruff to cover large patches of shady ground that would not need much / any mowing or other maintenance.


Cons: 

- Not native to Southeastern U.S. Like Sweet Woodruff, Ajuga reptans is native to Europe.

- Some sources list Ajuga as being mildly invasive. For instance, the North Carolina Native Plant Society has it listed as a "lesser threat".

Here's a patch of Ajuga that I really like in morning sun / afternoon shade. It's been expanding steadily and blocking all weeds from its patch of turf between a Japanese Aucuba and an Inkberry Holly. The foliage looks good all year round and the blue flower spikes were very pretty in the spring. I'm not sure which variety of Ajuga I have here. The tag says "Burgundy Glow" but the foliage doesn't look anything like the picture of Burgundy Glow on Monrovia's website. Perhaps it is Mahogany or Black Scallop? I think Black Scallop, although it doesn't behave like the other plant that was labeled Black Scallop. Either there is a lot of behavioral and visual diversity within Ajuga cultivars or there's a fair amount of mislabeling going on...

- As with Sweet Woodruff, I could see Ajuga becoming a problem for annuals or other small perennials. Reportedly at least some species of Ajuga spread both through rhizomes and stolons, so that could make it doubly hard to control. Supposedly also may spread by seeds and can reportedly show up far away in garden beds and lawns. (Although I haven't found any seedlings yet.)

- Also like Sweet Woodruff, Ajuga may technically be evergreen, but that doesn't mean it looks beautiful all year round. In fact, I found the Ajuga looked much more tattered than the Woodruff over the winter. I think slugs like to eat the Ajuga in the cool months, because there were lots of holes in the Ajuga leaves. The slugs didn't cause any mortal wounds and Ajuga has rebounded to look lush and thick in the springtime, but it's not necessarily all that attractive in the winter months.

- Ironically, even though Ajuga can be aggressive, it can also have the opposite problem of thinning out in the center. Some sources say that it needs to be divided every 2-3 years to prevent crown rot. I haven't noticed anything that catastrophic, but some of my Ajuga species do seem to be thinning out in the middle. I've read reviews online where gardeners talk about their ajuga dying out in one place and popping up somewhere else. I think my mother had this problem with her Ajuga, where it eventually died out where she wanted it to cover ground and then showed up far away in the lawn or in some other garden bed where she didn't really want it to grow. It may be unpredictable that way.

Conclusion:

I'm actually pretty conflicted on Ajuga. I can see its merits, but I worry that it is a little too thuggish. If it were a native plant, I probably would not be too concerned, but since it's an exotic, I worry about what natives it might suppress or displace if it were to spread beyond the garden. The fact that Ajuga is not on many invasive species lists does make me feel a bit more comfortable. That said, all four patches in my garden right now are behaving themselves and performing well. So I'm going to offer a qualified endorsement, but I'll keeping a close eye on the Ajugas in my garden and suggest you do the same in yours if you decide to plant some.

Meet the New Front Foundation!

Remember how we ripped out the old front foundation plants and then tried to reinvent the border by stocking up on shrubs last autumn?

Well, it's time to check back in with the front foundation plantings and see how things are shaping up. (I wish I could take you in order from one side of the border to the other, but Blogger's bulk upload feature doesn't work quite that smoothly for me, so the photos are presented in no particular order)

Agastache foeniculum, Anise Hyssop, "Golden Jubilee", a few leaves deteriorated or got mulched, so I removed them, but otherwise, this plant seems to be doing fine. Hope to see flowers in the summer.

One of the new Aquilegia vulgaris from Gardens in the Wood. This one is my favorite - a creamy white flower over fresh blue-green folage. 

Aronia arbutifolia "Brilliantissima", the beautiful white flowering show is pretty much done now and the plant is sending out new foliage. Interested to see whether it will actually produce fruits this year. 

Aronia melanocarpa, either "Autumn Magic" or "Viking" (not sure which is which), this is the last of three aronias to still have flowers. It is sort of charting a middle course between the Aronia arbutifolia (which concentrated first on flowers and then on foliage) and the other Aronia melanocarpa (which had a few flowers but seems to have focused this year on pumping out some large and beautiful leaves)

Aronia melanocarpa, either "Autumn Magic" or "Viking" (not sure which is which), love the beautiful leaves on this plant which seem really large for such a young tree 

I'm not a huge fan of azaleas for numerous reasons. At least at our property, the foliage frequently looks diseased (I don't do any spraying) and the plants themselves are unexciting outside of their short bloom season. The flowers do not seem to attract any bees or butterflies or other beneficial insects. (At least none that I can see.) And they don't seem to produce any fruit for birds or mammals. Plus the dead flowers look awful hanging onto the plant after bloom season. The plants are not self-cleaning (like crape myrtles or redbuds) and the flowers do not come off easily (as with daylilies, for instance, or camellias), so it's a chore to get the plants looking good after they bloom. All that being said, I imagine we'll keep them for now. My wife likes the azaleas in bloom and I have to admit, they really are beautiful when covered with flowers. This it their peak time to shine. Plus we're lucky enough to have inherited plants that do rebloom a bit in the autumn. That said, I don't think I'd add azaleas to any future garden of mine nor would I recommend it in Tennessee, especially if your garden does not have acidic soil. 

Aucuba japonica, Gold Dust Plant, seems to be happily settling in and sending out new foliage, which emerges all light green and then presumably changes later on to the variegated and speckled look. It was planted last autumn.

This is actually a pink azalea from the Northeast side of the house. I cheated a little by including it since it's not in the front foundation. But it is probably my favorite of the azaleas. Even though its foliage is very sparse, it still manages to cover itself with blooms.

Callicarpa americana, Beautyberry, a bit slow to leaf out, but I'm liking the shape and texture of the new leaves, interested to see how it performs this year in its more sheltered Eastern exposure. Last year, it was absolutely thrashed to pieces in a windy Southwestern spot. It seems much happier here so far. 

At the top of the photo is Tiarella cordifolia, Foamflower, "Pink Skyrockets". Contrary to its bold name, this tiarella actually has smaller and less prominent flowers than the more modestly-named Pink Brushes. Otherwise, it seems fairly similar to its Pink Brushes sibling.

Lower down is Stachys officinalis, Betony, Hummelo. Just added last month, the plant is doing well so far and looking healthy. It is supposed to have flowers that last from July to September! 

 Unknown autumn-blooming camellia, here when we moved in, seems to be sending out a lot of new growth shoots this year 

Camellia sasanqua, either Kanjiro or Pink-a-Boo (not sure which is which), seems to be settling in just fine after having been planted last autumn 

Unknown camellia, here when we arrived, a lot of the foliage seems less-than-healthy. Not sure what the problem is and I don't plan on spraying. The camellias sometimes seem to go through cycles of having foliage problems here and then recovering on their own. At least that's the pattern so far. I will probably give it some acidic fertilizer at some point.

- Lonicera semervirens, Coral Honeysuckle, this is one of the two cultivars - Alabama Crimson and Blanche Sandman - that are both growing nicely and sending out long tendrils that I'm trying to guide onto the porch railings with moderate success. Once the tendrils are tied to the railings for a little while, they often start curling around the railings and then are able to hang on by themselves. Lots of flowers this year, but sadly have not seen a single hummingbird on them yet. :(  Still the flowers and foliage are beautiful and it's nice to see my dream of climbing flowers along the railings coming true with this plant. 

Geronimo Crape Myrtle - Not sure this was the best choice for a foundation plant. Like all crape myrtles, it takes a long time to leaf out and then a number of branches did not leaf out fully. This plant was pretty inexpensive for its size, but it came from an unknown nursery. I wonder if maybe the roots were not so healthy? Or maybe it's just settling in. I pruned it back a bit after I took this photo and will probably do some more pruning in a few weeks when I see which branches look like they definitely won't leaf out no matter how long I wait. 

Crape myrtle, Tonto, which I believe was a Monrovia plant, seems to be leafing out much more robustly and fully on its Northeast corner than the Geronimo crape myrtle on the Southeast corner. We'll see if Geronimo catches up or if Tonto continues to perform better this summer. 

Dryopteris x australis, Dixie Wood Fern, seems to be acclimating nicely and sending out new fronds, a number of the fronds have fallen over, which doesn't really bother me, but I wonder if that is normal or if something has gone wrong? 

Fothergilla gardenii, nice white bottlebrush flower show this spring for several weeks, I'm liking the new foliage that's emerging now

Gardenia jasminoides "Jubilation", planted last autumn, this is one of the few plants that is not looking happy right now. Lots of yellowing leaves. Could be that it was unhappy with the long cold winter, or could be that the soil is not acidic enough? I will try adding some acidic fertilizer. 

Geranium x cantabrigiense "Biokovo", in bloom when I added it in April, I like the delicate pink-white flowers, the foliage seems smaller than some of the other Cranesbill perennial geraniums. 

Origanum vulgare, Golden Marjoram, "Aureum", doing great so far this year, much better than last year, looking very healthy, hoping I might get to see the pink/mauve summertime flowers that did not appear last year when the plant was struggling.

Veronica peduncularis (a.k.a Veronica umbrosa) "Georgia Blue", the flowering that was so cheerful in late winter when nothing else was blooming has mostly stopped, although there are still often a couple of open tiny blue flowers each day. The foliage still looks marvelous and healthy. Wish this would spread more!

- Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, Hardy Blue Plumbago, late to emerge, it has since sent up vigorous leaves that are larger than anything I saw last year. But the plants do not appear to have spread much yet (unfortunately). 

New foliage on one of the three Ilex glabra, Inkberry Holly shrubs that I added last autumn. The bushes weren't sexed, but hopefully I have a mix of males and females so that I'll have black berries that will attract birds later on. Looking forward to seeing whether my Ilex glabras produce flowers that attract hummingbirds as they are supposed to do.

A broader perspective on Ilex glabra to show the overall impression the plant makes.

- Alchemilla mollis, Lady's Mantle, seems to be settling in nicely, growing and expanding a little, I have high hopes for this one! As mentioned before, looks absolutely lovely after a rain or when gilded with the morning dew (but looks nice at other times as well). 

Hydrangea quercifolia, Oakleaf Hydrangea, "Snowflake", has leafed out nicely, I was absolutely smitten with this plant, but I've come down to Earth just a little bit, I did notice that some of the leaves were hit hard with what seems to be a fungal disease. Apparently oakleaf hydrangeas are susceptible to such problems at times of high moisture (we've had lots of rain lately). I picked off the worst-affected leaves. We'll see if that helps. 

Pachysandra procumbens, Alleghany Spurge, seems to have settled in nicely, does not appear to have spread much yet, but the new foliage looks great and the old foliage seems to be deteriorating pleasantly back into the soil. 

Phlox paniculata "Blue Boy"

Phlox paniculata "Eva Cullum" 

Platycodon grandiflorus, Balloon Flower, planted early last autumn, Platycodon has reappeared vigorously this year, with another newly planted Platycodon right behind it 

- Scabiosa columbaria, Pincushion Flower, the flowers are cute, but the whole plant is tiny. I'm sure I read somewhere that Scabiosa is supposed to grow 12-18 inches tall. Really? Because the plant is only about 3 inches tall at this point! 

Sedum ternatum, has been flowering for about a month since purchased. It seems happy and healthy in their partial shade setting 

Stargazer Lily

 Galium odoratum, Sweet Woodruff. I've already sung the praises of this plant many times. This year I have finally gotten to see the white flowers which have just started opening over the past week or so. Looking forward to clipping some stems and trying to dry some of the flowers/foliage, which is supposed to bring out its fragrance. 

Tiarella cordifolia, Foamflower, "Pink Brushes", my favorite of the tiarellas I purchased last month, this one has nicely variegated foliage like the others and the most prominent flowers. 

Tiarella cordifolia, Foamflower, "Running Tapestry", I like the foliage a lot, but this foamflower has fared the worst of the three I purchased last month. It frequently wilts if it goes a few days without rain, and we have not even gotten into the heat of the summer. I did move all three Tiarellas from a morning shade/afternoon sun setting to a spot where they get more gentle morning sun/afternoon shade. The other two tiarellas seem fairly happy with their situation, but I'm worried about this one. (Frankly I'm worried about all of them once we get into the heart of the summer, but I'm prepared to baby them a little this year in the hopes they'll be tougher once they get established.)

The ajuga in the background has been putting on quite a blue show! 

This variegated ajuga, has been flaunting its blue flower spikes for weeks and weeks. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have attracted any bees, but then sadly I have not seen many pollinators at all in the garden yet this year. 

Veronica spicata, Spike Speedwell, "Giles Van Hees", just starting to bloom

Clematis integrifolia, Solitary Clematis, late to emerge, I thought it was dead after the plant really struggled in last year's heat and drought, probably it was not smart to expect a plant that is native to Russia to perform well in Tennessee. Nonetheless, Clematis integrifolia has made a strong comeback so far this year. Not sure how it will do once the real summertime heat kicks in, but we shall see. No flowers yet, but the foliage looks clean, healthy and robust. 

Here's the other Lonicera sempervirens. Hard to believe, but I've yet to see any hummingbirds working these red tubular flowers! Do I need to put up a sign that says, "Hummingbirds welcome?"

Geranium sanguineum "New Hampshire". I'm really liking this one for its thick spreading foliage and the pink flowers. I saw a Geranium sanguineum at the Nashville botanic gardens last year. It seemed really tough there so I'm hoping mine will be also.

So that's the highlights! I may have missed one or two specimens (somehow skipped over the Monarda didyma "Jacob Cline"), and I didn't talk about the annuals like the Sweet Alyssum seed I scattered throughout the front of the bed or the Cosmos bipinnatus seedlings that are popping up here and there (not to mention a few English marigold seedlings from the flowers that filled the beds last year), but I think this probably gives you and idea of the rich diversity that I've aimed for in the front border.

Hope you've enjoyed the tour and that it wasn't too exhausting. Going forward, I think I'll try to limit my future posts to a maximum of 5 or so photos at a time.

Meanwhile, questions, suggestions and exclamations are all welcome using the new Disqus comment platform!