Why I Oughta...

One of the current-season 'gardening wins' that I'm going to take are the three Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' plugs that I planted in mid-August down at the corner of the driveway and sidewalk .  These are in the 'island bed' and right against those hard surfaces. I watered them *a little bit*, but they mostly seemed to handle themselves.  I planted them mid-Summer, so I'm hoping they'll overwinter better than others have in the past - when I planted Ajuga as part of a "fall planting" cycle.   See below for the three little plugs and how much they've grown in 2.5 months: 

About a month ago, I posted some details of the Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' that was rebounding in our front beds - in the little island bed in between our driveway and front steps and on the other side of the stairs and along the property line.  I've been trying to utilize more and more groundcover over the past few years - after neglecting it for the first five.  On a recent trip to the Home Depot, I found this six pack of Ajuga plugs in the nursery and brought them home.  It was in flower, so in the first photo below, you can see the pack of plugs and (at the bottom of the photo) the flower stems that I snip'd-off: I put three of the six in the little island bed between the driveway and front steps.  This bed already has some Chocolate Chip, so I was sort-of filling in some of the gaps.  Below are three photos:  first one shows all three new plugs mixed with the existing.  Second one shows two of them (left and right) and the third photo shows the one f...

Yesterday, I posted a couple of photos showing the front porch Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' groundcover and talked about how they all had some Winter die-back/decline despite a somewhat mild Winter.  Most of the colonies are back this year up front, but reduced in size. Today, I'm showing part of the front-of-the-border band of Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' that runs in the "Kitchen Curved" bed.  This is the oldest bed and the first one that has fully filled-out with Oakleaf Hydrangeas, Amsonia, various Astilbes, some Japanese Anemone, a Fernleaf Spirea (Matcha Ball) and dotted with a tiny Emperor 1 Japanese Maple tree.   The Ajuga here was first planted in Spring of 2023 .  Here's what they looked like 90 days later - after the heat of August .  They were putting on size with some larger than a grapefruit.   By last Spring, I wrote this 'hits/misses' post showing how some of the Ajuga was working , while other colonies didn't.   Last Fall, as the l...

Starting in the Fall of 2022, I have added one type of groundcover every year - Ajuga 'chocolate chip'.  I think it was Plantsman Roy Diblik who first turned me on to the plant (in one of his videos) and I stuck a few plugs into the island bed in between our front stoop and the driveway .  A year later, I was calling these a success as they had grown and filled out some of the space .   By last July, the groundcover was peeking out over the driveway and filling in space all around the Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses in the bed.   But, over this past Winter, we had a setback.  There was some serious die-back on the entire bed.  Everything shrunk down and some of the plants didn't seem to come back.  I also lost ALL six of the Island Bed plugs that I planted last year, too .  This wasn't my first Winter of decline for some of the Ajuga.  I've posted this 'Ajuga Hits and Misses' post in Spring of 2024 that talked/showed some of th...

One of the thing that's been on my mind over the past few months is the concept of 'legibility' in the garden.  I wrote up a post about it - when I first came across the concept.  I also included it in my 2025 to-do list .  Part of legibility are 'entrances'.  Entrances to garden spaces.   One of the primary entrances to our garden is along the side of house via the boardwalk.  In my 2025 to-do list, I mentioned 'planting up the boardwalk' as something I wanted to get done.   Over the past few years, I've planted a few things there - but nothing has worked.  Ferns.  Hostas.  I think it is too dry and too dark.   But, I'm trying again.  This time...with an Ajuga.  Bronze Beauty Ajuga.  Here's the six-pack of groundcover that I bought: Along the screened porch, there's a long, thin bed.  Below is the before/after of planting these six plugs: I watered them in and they looked flat that first day....

I've long proclaimed myself to be a foliage gardener.  That's partially because I'm a shade gardener and partially because flowering plants have always been a little bit outside of my comfort zone.  But, I'm starting to think that I'm also *another* kind of gardener:  a Fall Gardener.  Or at least a late Summer + Fall Gardener.   The September and October Dahlia blooms this year have taught me to love that part of the growing season.  And now....as things are going dormant in our yard and garden, I'm struck by some things that are happening in Fall.   What are those things?  Here's one - below.  The EYE-SEARING gold that is coming from our Butterscotch Amsonias in our backyard that are contrasted by the dark green foliage of some Alice Oakleaf Hydrangeas.  This color is borderline shocking.  It is a little hard to see, but if you look closely, there are a couple of other things worth noting in this photo.  First....th...

Fall Planting 2024 keeps rolling right along with the planting of a six-pack of groundcover plugs.  These are something I've used WIDELY in my garden: Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip'.  #3 on my 2024 to-do list was to keep going on groundcover (or...as I want to call it "living mulch"), so these six help that cause .  I've had some 'hits and misses' with Ajuga , but have learned a little bit about it over the years.   I opted to put all six in the newly 'extended' Island bed in the front yard.  I decided to plant the Skylands Spruce tree in the back of that bed, so I had to add a good amount of mulch to extend it back.  I figured that was a good spot to put down some groundcover.   Below you can see four of the Ajuga Chocolate Chip planted on the northside of the bed - but right at the feet of the new Skylands Spruce.   I put the other two in a little bit more of a 'protected' area - under the canopy of the Northern Glow Korean Maple.  I...

The groundcover that I've fallen for in the past few seasons has been Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip'.  I've planted it in a few spots in the front and back.  But, the first planting was in Fall 2022 when I put a couple of plugs from the big box Fall closeout sale in the island bed between our front stairs and driveway.    This post from August of 2023 shows both the as-planted size and what they looked like nine months later - in August of 2023 .  I had three plants then.  Last Fall, I added a few more - the ones along the driveway seem to have made it, but the two tucked in behind the Karl Foerster grasses died back this Spring .   To date, I haven't divided these, but rather have just let them spread out and naturalize the area.   Here, below is what it looks like today - with the carpet bugleweed growing out into a dense weed-suppressing mat.  I've started to call this "living mulch". Here are a few close-up photos below showing the gro...

Yesterday, I posted a look at the view of our front porch beds.  This post takes a look at a small section right *behind* that view.  In my fit of planting Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' during the 2023 growing season, I seem to have put down three small plugs in the front porch bed - along the front/southside border.  These are set back a little from where the annuals go and are in front of the last/one Green Velvet Boxwood that is staggered behind the others that went in last year.  I don't seem to have documented them when they were planted, but I know they came from a 12-pack of plugs, so they were small.  What do they look like today?  Three clumps that have spread out and started to cover some of the bare dirt - aka "living mulch".   Below is a photo showing the Ajuga as well as a peek at the annual marigolds in front: More of these should be on my Fall Planting 2024 list.  There are literally DOZENS of places that can use 'living mulch'. ...

In the middle of May, I moved ahead with a garden edit in our backyard that involved removing/transplanting hostas (hosta replacement project) and adding a few things from the Morton Plant Sale.  Here's the post showing the original look and what this new mixed perennial shade bed looked like a month ago .  Now, four-or-so weeks later, the area has filled in a little bit.  Below is a photo showing the current state: The Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' at the front of the border has filled in, the Dark Side of the Moon Astilbes have put on some size, as have the Summer Beauty Alliums.  Mixed in there are three Soft Touch Japanese Hollies and three Autumn Moor Grasses that I've moved around a few times.   At the back of this little garden pocket - brightening up the space - are the Sun King Aralias.   This is working - for me.    As I think about finishing up a few other spots of edits in the backyard, I'll revisit this combination - in particular ...

Last month, I wrote about how 2024 might end up being the year of the great "Garden Edit" for our backyard .  I collected my thoughts about what I was drawn-to garden-wise and that boiled down to a few things:  planting in masses, focused on plants that work for our garden, have some appeal foliage-wise and have some four-season appeal (or at least 2 or 3 season).   I outlined a few places that I thought about editing including around the tree swing tree, the kitchen curved bed, IB2DWs and the 'hosta replacement project' on both sides of far backyard.   The first "Garden Edit" that I took on was the tree swing tree .  Where, I reorganized some things and pulled the Hakonechloa Macra (green ones) Grasses to the front and plan on carrying that drift further back.   The second "Garden Edit" was the southside Hosta Replacement Project/Stumpery .  I pulled out a number of hostas and transplanted the All Gold Hakonechloa Macra grasses from the...

Last Fall, I discovered a quart-sized Ajuga - Burgundy Glow - that was planted in one of the kid's fairy garden was going REALLY well and I figured I could transplant it into the ground and extend it to being a perennial groundcover.  After all, I have had A LOT of luck with another Ajuga - Chocolate Chip.  So, I dug it out of the fairy garden and popped it into the bed right outside our screened porch door.   Fast-forward through the Winter and the Ajuga didn't make it.  But, the idea of groundcover over here makes a lot of sense.  But, I don't think Ajuga is right for this spot.  Just a little bit away is the drift of Angelina Sedum that is planted in either side of our back stoop.  I picked up my little shovel, stuck the blade in to make a little square and yanked out two of them - right in the middle of the existing colony of Angelina Sedum.  See below for the two spots I divided: The conditions of the bed outside the screened porch are ...

2024 is shaping up to the year of garden edits.  A lot less additions in our backyard garden, but some edits to shift towards things meet some criteria:   1.  Work in our yard. 2.  Are appealing (to me). 3.  Have some four-season appeal. That means that changing out things that don't meet those critieria (hostas) and replace them with things that do - both plants that I have on-hand and ones that I need to bring home. My time in this garden is too short to spend time or effort on plants that I don't love.  The edits that I'm thinking about right now focus on mass plantings and repetition.   There's a garden in our neighborhood that I walk past and admire often.  It has a large property with simple, repetitive-planted beds that have hostas, groundcover and a couple of other perennials.  There's A LOT of beds, but they MOSTLY ALL planted in the same pattern - groundcover in front, hostas behind and a third perennial in the rear. ...

The past few years have been a love story between me, the gardener and Ajuga 'Chocolate Chips', the groundcover.  I've bought it a few different sizes (quarts and plugs) and have scattered them around the front and back of our yard.  Some have really thrived.  Some have died totally.  And others...well...they're still TBD.  This time in early Spring is when these Ajugas take on a different form - with curled-up, darker foliage that make them standout a bit.  Soon...they'll be filled with blue/purple flowers.   Here's a look at some of those - starting with some less-than-one-year-old plugs.  These went in the bed in late May in our backyard, sort-of in-front-of the Fanal Astilbes .  The six plugs are not stretching out into six plants.  Soon...maybe this year, they'll connect to each other: Next up, is a pair of plugs that went in the backyard in late Fall.  These are planted in front of the Baby Blue Spruce Tree.  They, w...

In mid-October, I transplanted a groundcover plant (Burgundy Glow Ajuga) from one of the kid's container fairy gardens into the small foundation bed outside of our screened porch door .  It has a massive set of roots that I had to man-handle to get out of the container and that likely put the plant under a lot of stress.   Then...the cold temperatures arrived and it appears that this plant didn't have much time to recover and put down any new roots in its new home.   Here's what it looks like today (below).  It did NOT handle the cold temperatures as well as some of my other Ajuga colonies. Now...a closer inspection reveals that ALL might NOT be lost.  My eye spies a small (maybe quarter or less of the plant) that appears to have healthy (although winter-damaged) foliage.  That *might* mean that it can come back as the temperatures warm up.  I'll be keeping an eye on it in the next few weeks to see if it wakes up.  I'm going to try to ap...

A couple of days ago, I posted in my [compost bins] diary a look at the current state of my bins now that I've topped them off with a lot of ornamental grass material - reeds, canes and blades.  I tried to chop the material down into smaller segments in an attempt to break it up a bit and speed decomposition.    While I was cleaning up the grasses, I also went into the front porch bed and clipped off and cleaned up the front of the bed.  That included a number of Dusty Millers and all of the Seslaria Autumnalis (Autumn Moor Grass) .    Here, below, is a look at this bed after I trimmed up the Moor Grasses - but left behind some of the Fall leaf litter that has accumulated over Winter:  I also have three large Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses in the island bed between our driveway and front walk.  I pruned all of those ornamental grasses and cut them off an inch-or-two above their crown.  That island bed after the ornamental grasses have be...