Friday, June 01, 2007

Phlox and New Spirea

Because I'm excited about this new purchase, you get to see one of my new shrubs. I bought four of these Spirea "Mini Sunglo" shrubs. They have tinier leaves than the regular spirea, and have bright yellow-green foliage. Resident-lawnmower-man laughed and asked what it is about my predilection for things miniature. (That never crossed my mind when I bought these, but I did get into bonsai a few years ago). The foliage color looks good next to the blue grape hyacinths and I'm hoping the tiny shrub will help disguise the fading glory of the bulbs.
The rock gardens are replendent in carpets of the pinky-purple flowers of creeping phlox (Phlox subulata), one of my favourite hardy evergreen perennials. I have been dividing a couple plants that already existed in the yard when we moved here in 2004, and these plants are all products of that cheap propagation method. They are quite showy and I get lots of comments about them.
Another view of the "rock garden". I grew about 50 new dianthus "rock garden mix" from seed this year and planted them in the spaces. I am hoping that it will finally fill in next year.This is one of the stacked stone wall raised beds with pink "Menton" single late tulips. The wall of green in the background is sedum that will flower yellow in July. It is very hardy and spreads, so I beat it back where it creeps over and under edging into the perennial border. I also walk on it to get at the occasional dandelion or to take photos. As you can see, the mountain ash tree (top right corner) is not yet blooming.

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