Plans and Design Ideas

2024 Plans and Design Ideas

1. Blue Ice

Finally, after years, the curved border of Blue Ice amsonias looks great, filled in and blooming. 

May 30, 2024

Now I want more, in a more prominent spot where I can see them and their spring blooms will add color to my early gardens.

Perfect starry little flowers

They get half day shade in the mornings, then sun in the afternoon. I had to photograph them in the shade, and they're hard to capture. They really are prettier than these shady photos show! 

They are doing well finally without root competition (originally they languished at the foot of the vine covered fence).  The one I salvaged and put under the birdbath struggles with thyme root mat encroachment and is still tiny. 

Part day shade --- and lots of water -- seems to have helped too. 

But where would I put more? I could put one in a pot and place it somewhere.

Or I could order a bunch more from Bluestone Perennials and re-create this pretty little border somewhere more easily visible. Where?

Or a couple on either side of the bench? They would anchor it in the circle perhaps, and be nice with the irises behind.

There is a tiny sulphur buckwheat and a pineleaf penstemon on either side of the bench now -- the amsonias could be planted behind those.  Two flanking the bench look stiff and too symmetrical though. Too much like specimens and not the naturalistic curved line of them that I like under the guest room window.

I could create a curve by planting several in an S shape starting at the bench and winding back around the redbud. I don't want a stiff circle ucner the redbud, but could this work:

Or . . . run a long line of them down the moss rock border. Maybe a dozen or more in a curving line draping along the rocks from the garage door down to the lower flagstone patio, leaving the entrance into the birdbath circle open:

Both of these ideas seem too structured and stiff. Maybe just a row on the lower section curve?

2. Replaced Skyrocket Juniper w/ Blue Arrow

It went. I needed something framed by the bedroom slider that complements the peacock on the deck and the copper brown urn, but the Skyrocket juniper turned out to be too big and open.

From fence to deck is only 7 feet wide and I want to be able to walk between the deck and the tree, so a tree must be no wider than 4 feet at maturity.

Skyrocket on left, Blue Arrow on right

I took out the Skyrocket and planted a Blue Arrow, like what Greg had in his garden, and what I originally intended for my space. 

There are differences, which I did not realize. 

My Skyrocket was trying to spread out to 4 or 5 feet, and tight up against the fence it was thin in back, distorted looking. 

Blue Arrow will only get to 2 feet max and is pencil shaped, better suited to the space and I can bring it out away from the fence a foot or so without getting too near the deck. 

The foliage of Skyrocket is loose -- mine was very open looking. And more olive gray green than blue.

Blue Arrow has tighter foliage, is bluer and stays narrower (and shorter).

Here's a comparison chart:

✔ I got a 5 gallon Blue Arrow from Forestfarm for $85. I used to order from them a lot. This is a slow growing conifer, so I got the bigger size.

Other Possibilities

Structural and interesting, especially when young

I considered some other options before settling back on the Blue Arrow juniper that I had thought I was getting to start with 6 years ago. Here are some other thoughts for a vertical accent in this small space:

> Columnar Atlas blue cedar - Cedrus atlantica glauca. I have seen these around town and they are awkwardly charming accents. 

Cedrus atlantica glauca is on the parks department list of recommended trees for Santa Fe.

Sooner Plant Farm has 'Horstmann' in a 5 gallon for $210. It gets 10 feet tall, 5 feet wide. Very architectural. 

But its sprawl might be too much for the narrow space when mature. Blue atlas cedars can be pruned. Might need staking?

 Gold Cone juniper by my fence here?

Its open shagginess looks right in this climate, though. Not fussy or stiff. It's a slow grower and won't take over the space for a long while . . but eventually the 6 foot spread might be too much.

> Or I could do Gold Cone Juniper -- Lowe's had some nice big ones in spring 2024.

Write ups say it gets slowly to 8 feet tall after 10 years at the most, but mine was almost 10 feet tall when we left. It was 7 years old then and had grown rapidly. 

It stays very narrow, less than 3 feet, and very dense. I did have the problem with lack of growth on the wall side, though, the same issue I have with the Skyrocket juniper.

Mine never got golden colored, but stayed a light green. That would be a good contrast with the medium green vine behind it. 

In winter it did bronze up a bit.

3. The Birdbath Circle 

I took out  the two coreopsis plants -- they looked great in bloom in early summer, but it was brief and then they were kind of clumpy with sparse re-blooms most of the summer.

I liked their sunny brightness, but I want the plants around the birdbath to be more elegant and upright, mostly the agastaches and Texas sages and the clear white obedient plants. And I'm trying taller looking blackeyed Susans too.

In the outer circle I got several new plants to try:

> Next to the Windwalker Red salvia, a dwarf goldenrod, Little Lemon, that only gets 14 inches tall and stays compact. 

It's not the small elegant vase shape of the little goldenrod out front that was here already. I don't know what variety that one is.

This one is rounded, ball shaped, with exploding shaggy flower clusters that are a little rangy looking.

> Where the poor, much moved orange kniphofia was at the edge of the moss rocks, I put in the silvery blue Perfect Profusion salvia, next to the new dwarf goldenrod.

This stays full and rounded and may get to a foot and a half tall, about the same height as the goldenrod, but blooms in spring and early summer, before the goldenrod.

> I got an Electric Blue penstemon that will be about 14 inches tall, with vivid blue blooms. It iswhere the Burgundy Bunny grass was, which never grew. This penstemon should be very eye catching, in between an earlier blooming low nepeta and a sulphur buckwheat.

It would be great if the buckwheat's yellow pompoms come out at the same time in early summer as this beardtongue's bright blue flowers.

5. Red Cascade Rose

I rethought having the rose climb a new tall structure that arches up to the door canopy edge -- see my original thoughts below. I don't want to install another structure in my gardens, I want simplicity and naturalness, not more stuff.

The rose is finally growing up over the spiral tower. As it gets even longer this summer, I want to tie upper stems to breach the distance to the door canopy -- then have it scramble, as it wants to do, up to the small peaked roof.

It isn't a climber so much as a cascading draper, and my thought when I first planted this in the corner was to have it go over to the fence and crawl along the top of the posts.

         But this is an alternative I had been thinking about:

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.

Or this one, also the same height at about 8 feet and with a horizontal span of about 5 feet across the top. That would reach from the rose to the lower portion of the canopy. It could also be "set" leaning on top of the slant of the roof, rather than screwed into anything. It's $152.

This one is similar, but with less of any arch at the top. $285 for a 5 foot span at the top.

This could totally work!

3. Tool Closet:

The resin closet that was left here by the former owners isn't working any more. It has buckled and it leaks. 

I've asked Tim to build a cedar tool shed. I gave him this design for him to figure out dimensions.

It has to be shallow for the small space, about two feet deep at the most. And it has to be no more than 65 inches high so it isn't seen over the fence. 

It has to be watertight, with an overhang shed roof. Since it will be under 6 feet high, and since I'm going to want it wider -- maybe 4 feet wide -- it won't look like an upright tool closet, it will be more horizontal. 

But it will have one side open for tall things, and 3 shelves on the other side.

I have other examples on Pinterest here.