Diary June 2005 - Getting Started

June 2005

OK! So let me start planning my next garden.
Hmmm…….
?
It’s so difficult to know where to start! Should I try to plan out the basic landscape design? How can I? I don’t know where we’ll end up buying the “retirement” house or how big the lot will be.
Should I start digging through the shoebox of ideas I’ve collected? Start highlighting favourite sections of books and magazines from my library?
I know! I’ll start by looking at my present garden, which has so many pockets of hidden delights that maybe I can re-create some of them in a future spot.
Here are some of my favourite little areas right now in June:
1) Explorer roses ‘John Cabot’ in front of variegated green and white Dogwood leaves (Cornus alba ‘Elegantissima’)

2) My 2 ft. statue of “Elaine” (a little girl holding an apron full of seeds to feed the birds) surrounded by Hosta ‘Golden Tiara’ and annual Lisianthus (Eustoma) in deep purple
3) My deck surrounded by white, pale pink and deep fuschia peonies
4) Hostas “Great Expectations” and “Paul’s Glory” in front of a golden Euonymus and beside a dark green prostrate juniper
5) In a quiet corner near the garden gate are climbing roses “New Dawn” (pale pink) and “Don Juan” (dark velvety red), golden juniper, variegated phlox paniculata “Nora Leigh”, 2 painted Japanese ferns, a nicely shaped rock, a fat clump of European Ginger all surrounded by pale pink impatiens and white alyssum
6) On one side of the wrought-iron/wooden bench: red geraniums and purple allysum in front of a boulder with variegated Karl Forster reed grass rising behind it

7) Beside the bench on the other side: my 2 foot statue of Brer Rabbit in his little waistcoat surrounded by 2 dwarf daylilies “Fairy Tale Pink” and “Little Wine Cup” and red geraniums
8) Near the neighbour’s fence, listed in layers from the back: Marie’s Viburnum, yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata), Salvia “Ostfriesland” and Hosta “Night Before Christmas” with variegated white and green leaves
9) Dark green columnar junipers, Karl Forster reed grasses and silvery Himalayan potentilla with its deep red flowers
10) Weeping Norway Spruce with tall apricot lilies (ready to bloom soon), my Koa fish statue and red geraniums
11) Tall, deep purple Siberian Iris surrounded by Hosta “Blue Cadet” and white baby-mum flowers of feverfew.


Sigh…………Remind me again why I want to move??