Plans and
Design Ideas
1. Plants for the Circle garden
Plant Radio Red salvia where gomphrena was under crabapple
Additional Kannah Creek sulphur buckwheats to add to existing
Additional Texas mealycup blue sages to add to existing
Additional Orange Kudos agastaches to add to existing
Another dwarf Lacey Blue Russian sage & replace Blue Profusion sage
Add May Night saliva to replace the tiny nepeta (move that behind the dwarf lavender at the lower patio.
Try a NJ Tea (ceanothus) under the redbud, behind the first ring of plants
2. Dining Room Window Garden
Add Salvia arizonica Deep Blue -- it's a sage that grows in dry shade. Mass several together in the empty spot between columbines and the Texas betony.
3. Front Portal
Put one Salvia arizonica Deep Blue under the pine where there is an emitter. Grows in shade.
Plant the mondardella at the corner where the ajugas are for a pop of red.
4. Containers
Chair with plant stand behind it at the kitchen door. Profusion zinnias in pots the wire carrier (or use the tan oblong plastic trough).
Annuals in the terra cotta bowl by the garage stoop.
Red geraniums and use the 3 red pots of blue fescue grasses behind. I was going to unpot the grasses this spring and plant them out in the gardens, but decided to shear them and see if they regrow well. I still want to use them grouped behind the trough. Or maybe get 3 new blue fescues for these pots?
The white bowl: instead of cuphea, try a vivd blue lobelia and some yellow and orange Profusion zinnias. Also a division of the yellow tickseed perhaps. Um, maybe kind of like this:
5. Garage Stoop and Kitchen Courtyard
Plant the Intermountain Beauty gaura to the left of the table, flanking the cardinal penstemon. No emitter there. HCG says it is a compact form, only 18 to 22 inches high and about a foot wide.
Notes on the gaura:
** Late spring cut it back by at least half. **
Plant two or three of the Southern Charm verbascums to the other side, to the right of the table, grouped. No emitters there either, so water well by hand.
Take out the stump in the kitchen courtyard and put one or two of the rest of the Southern Charm verbascums there beneath the butterfly bush and next to the Kintzley's Ghost vine. No emitter in that spot.
Although I like the visual weight of the stump in that dark corner ↑
Will the verbascums light up that lower level well enough? The serviceberry won't look like that for years yet . . .
6. New Strip
I actually expanded the rock line from this picture out into the gravel a bit further.
Here's what I would plant:
- A division of the yellow tickseed to start the line,
- then Black Adder agastache,
- then unpot the Windwalker Red salvia,
- then the Rocky Mountain penstemon,
- finally the dwarf Golden Baby goldenrod in front of the peony.
Maybe, if there's room, put the dwarf Russian Sage Lacey Blue in there too for late season interest with the goldenrod.
Not all will bloom at the same time of course. iI's a lot of purple spikes, yellow and red at different times of the season.
Notes on the red salvia:
I won't do the red & white salvia, hardy only to zone 8.
Instead, use the Windwalker Red salvia, which gets quite big and tall. ** Cut it back to 8 inches as growth appears then by 1/2 after every flower flush -- to keep it from flopping. **
7. Red Cascade Rose
I decided to try to get the rose to scramble over the fence rather than grow over to the left to eventually reach the door canopy. There just isn't a good way to get it over there and somehow keep it attached to the metal roof.
I did have an idea for training it to get over toward the door but decided against it. Here's the concept and materials I had in mind, just in case I want to revisit this:
Here's a half trellis on Amazon, almost 8 feet tall with a span at the top of 5 feet. I wouldn't be able to screw it into anything, but set it against the slope of the canopy roof. $162.
This could totally work!
