Why I Oughta...

Last season, I did a number of 'garden edits' - where I improved parts of our beds via selective editing.  In some cases, that meant adding MORE of something.  Or in other cases, it meant replacing hostas with something more appealing.  One of those 'garden edits' was the nook behind the Weeping Cypress tree on the north side of the far backyard .   I pulled out a bunch of hostas and replaced it with a few things: A row of Sun King Golden Japanese Spikenard - Aralia cordata . Some transplanted Summer Beauty Alliums A row of Dark Side of the Moon Astibles - along with transplanting a few that I already had on-hand. And, fronted with some groundcover. My #4 item on my 2025 to-do list is to 'finish the garden edits'.  I mentioned that I was pretty sure a bunch of the stuff I planted back here wasn't going to come back.  It had a hard Summer and I've been thinking that the Sun King Aralias and the Astilbes didn't have enough time to establish themselve...

Yesterday, I posted about how as I've matured as a gardener, I'm focusing on garden edits vs additions.  In that post, I called our four spots that I'd like to edit - Tree Swing tree, Kitchen Curved, Hosta Replacement and IB2DWs.   The first one that I've started with is the Tree Swing tree bed.  I was out with my shovel cutting in an edge and took on the edit - starting with finding new homes for some things. My edit criteria are: 1.  Work in our yard. 2.  Are appealing (to me). 3.  Have some four-season appeal. My plan is to feature Hakonechloa Macra grasses (the green ones) and Alliums to start - both of which check all three criteria.  Here (below) is the 'before' - the garden edit - where the plants sit currently.  Just in the wrong (to my eye) spot: First, I dug up the Seslaria Autumnalis (three of them) and pulled them out.  They're moving back in the garden, but that's for a separate post.  Below is a photo showing the hol...

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. ...