The end of my exuberant garden

In the three years that we have had our house I have greatly increased the flower beds. We went from the standard narrow bed lining the walkway that was only one geranium deep to beds that are four and five times as deep in some areas. I also went from a small circle island to a large oval island in the center of the lawn. In addition, I created two completely new beds last year that bracket the bottom of our driveway.

Its been a lot of work, and I have really enjoyed it, but now it is time to take a look at the scale and make some serious changes.

I have plants that are too tall lining the walkway. I have plants that sprawl over the walkway. They look beautiful until it rains - then everything and everyone that wants to use the walkway is soaked. So in the next few weeks, I am going to be rearranging everything, but I thought I would post some pictures first of what it looks like now.

This is the bottom of the walkway.

This message was edited Oct 24, 2008 9:35 PM

The bottom includes a toffee grass that was always blocked by larger plants in its previous site. I moved this in June, and added some salvia and coneflowers.

There's also some coneflowers that I got in Fairy's coop earlier this year. They start out a really pretty orange color.

This is my first year growing a couple of new salvia. Tutti frutti is such a pretty salvia. It looks almost etheral, the way that it soars over the other plants

A closer view. I love the colors of the flowers.

Then there is the new purple grass that I added this year. I have three plants. Its Pennistium Princess.

Yet another one.

I have more yellow flowers than anything else because of the many types of rudbeckia in my garden.

This message was edited Sep 28, 2008 3:48 PM

Yellow is a happy color

This is the island that I started two years ago. The dwarf crepe myrtle looks great this year. It has geraniums, zinnias, coneflowers rudbeckia, marigolds, lavender, and barberry.

A closer view from the same side.

I love the color of the crepe

This is the view from the top of my walkway looking down. The liatris were in bloom as well as the coneflowers and bee balm.

Here's is what it look like before I move the large coneflowers. This is in June. I used my five year old for comparison

My eleven year old begged me to move the big plants because they were taking over the walkway! This is the view toward the street.

I moved them so that we didn't have the tunnel. But this was only June, there were still move plants that would be growing out of their bounds.

This is the large island.

Here is the rest of the island. I couldn't get it all in one shot.

The island has tithonia, coneflowers, geraniums, callendula, marigolds, stella d'oros, purple fountain grass, rudbeckia, kniphonia, and canas.

By the end of summer, the tithonia had taken over!

This the center of the island.

As you can tell, I have a wide variety of flowers. This shot is looking uphill towards the lightpost. There are geraniums, roses, zinnias, and a black eye susan vine from last year that is trying to smother everything in sight. I am trying to pull it out from the roots. It seems to be everywhere!

wow that looks awesome. Why don't you just move the plants back away from the walkway more

Last photo. Next year, it is going to be not as wild, but hopefully, it will still be as much fun!

hi, thanks for sharing your garden photos...so pretty...I love the peachy orange coneflowers :)

Wow ! thanks for sharing I would like to take a walk in your garden. I can tell you have put a lot of work into it. Lots and lots of color. i am with you yellow is a happy color I have a lot of yellow in my yard. You are also correct the tithonia will take over but the BF's love it so i just let it go. Again thanks for sharing.

You couldn't have picked a better word - Exuberant is it, lol! And I must say, someone is going to swoon over that boys curls in about 12 years - he's gorgeous.

Now for a few questions ....

Your new Pennisetum - I really really like that. Does it flower? I'm used to seeing almost as many seed heads on those grasses as... well, grass. And is it hardy in 6b? It looks a lot like a Phormium - New Zealand Flax ( http://www.smgrowers.com/gardens/flaxphormdazz.asp ). Please say it's hardy...

I'm really hung up on not getting one big "bang" of blooms and then a fizzle. Did that happen to you? it looks like all of your plants are in bloom in each of your pics. I know that there's at least a few that bloom over a long period - how did that work for you?

Thanks for taking the time to put all those pics up - must have taken a while!

WOW that is absolutely beautiful! All of it! I especially love that patch with that very handsome 5 yr old, and coneflowers, liatris, monarda & everything. I bet the butterflies were all over that! I understand you need to move it because of the room but boy does it look beautiful the way it is! : D

Absolutely stunning, enjoyed the lovely garden tour. That cute 5 y/o pumpkin is toooooo cute and a delightful addition to your gardens.

Oh! what a garden!!!! please try and not remove anything!! some trimming and cutting back, and only in EXTREME circumstances remove!!!!

My garden used to be like yours, different, as we have lots of shade, but just as massed and overflowing with wonderful stuff!! when I look at it now, after repeated falling tree damage, drought, and my DH's - also exuberant - passion for paving everything with bricks and pavers, (we have no grass now), and browse my old photos of what it used to be like, I have a little weep......
so please!!! be very VERY careful and thoughtful about what you remove, gardens like yours are just a dream for so many people......

And!! as for that beautiful boy of yours!!! Oh dear, he won't like that will he? being called beautiful, VBG, well handsome then... what a charmer he's going to be!!!!

Sorry, I was away from the site for a few days. I am not going to raze the garden or get rid of most of my flowers. What I am going to try to day is to rein them in some, so that they aren't all over the place.

I love the multiple colors and different type of flowers so this is going to be a real challenge for me.

I think that because I have so many different types of flowers, and a real mixture of perennials and annuals, I have always had something in bloom since this spring. Even now, I still have plenty of rudbeckia blooming, the roses are blooming, as well as tithonia, coneflowers, salvia, daylillies, and geraniums. Since I start all of my annuals from seeds, I am able to get a lot of them in early and really cheap.

Pagan, princess pennisetum is zoned down to 8, possibly 7 with protection. I am anticipating that it is going to be an annual. When I look at the size of it now, it is hard to believe that I planted a small plug this spring. I got it from Santa Rosa Gardens in Fla, and I think they were about $6 each. This was my most expensive plant purchase all summer! This was one of the plants July 20.

I had planted purple fountain grass in the same spots last year, and they grew to be huge. It was such a relief to cut them down in the fall.

This message was edited Oct 4, 2008 8:34 AM

Most of my perennials I have purchased in the last year from Ebay with excellent results. This year I grew dahlias for the first time. These are from seeds. I'm just too cheap to spend alot of each plant. Also, I don't know that I want to lift the tubers in the fall. I'm just lazy when it comes to taking plants up. It's much more fun to plant them.

This was also my first year growing bachelor buttons, and cosmos. I don't think that I will be repeating either one next year though because I don't like the thin stems and leaves. I prefer sturdier plants.

Here's the cosmos. They pooped out way too early for me. I pulled them about a month ago. These are the only plants that I needed to pull so far.

I grew a few cannas for the first time ever this year also. I can't remember the full name but it had "wine" in it. It has dark red leaves. It was so hard for me to wait to plant them outside. As soon as something came up I wanted to plant them, but the soil wasn't warm enough.

Even though I have alot of variety, I did keep repeating the same flowers in different places, so I think that helped with the cohesiveness. I have a limited amount of flowers that bloom for a short time - lilies and liatris come to mind - but most of them last all summer if they are deadheaded. Once the casablanca lilies finished blooming, they were hidden by the other flowers.

I wish they would bloom all summer!

Or just forever, huh?

Thanks for your answers... yeah, I guess $6 for such a beautiful accent is probably really nothing in the grand scheme of things... dang, I'm cheap! Wonder if I could grow it myself. Must keep an eye out on e-bay for that one!

It is a beautiful garden and your little boy is sooo cute! What a heartbreaker.

I love how you have all those plants on the walkway. I would just dig behind and move some that are overflowing into the walkway and plant them right behind - in the grassy area. I'm sure your husband won't like that. Mine hate loosing his "grassy area" to my plants!

Thank you Lili. If I could clone my son I would. My daughter is another story!

Every year (I've only had the house three years!), I have expanded the beds. This spring I doubled the size of my central island. Two years ago, I added two completely new islands. I'm still trying to figure out how to further increase my bed without making the whole area unwieldy. I need to be able to walk around the beds, and I need to be practical with the kids and dog run around as well.

My husband has absolutely no say in the matter. Since he does nothing outside including mow, I don't ask, and don't tell! Actually, he doesn't have a lot of say on what happens inside the house either!

Pennefeather: What a gorgeous garden! And that young man is going to be every mother's worst nightmare in about 10 more years! But he's a handsome fellow and I'll be he has you wrapped around his little finger with that grin.

Your flowers are certainly flourishing, so you're doing things right. Just neaten the walkway and be done with it, but if you must redo, please post photos after you finish your remodel.