Why I Oughta...

We have a number of Allium Summer Beauty scattered around the garden.  They were the first clumping ornamental onion that I used in the garden and, I think one of the best.  They just grow.  Over the years, I've added others - like Serendipity Allium.   When I was up at Roy Diblik's Northwind Perennial Farm, I came across a new (to me) allium:  Medusa.  Here's the sign they have up below: Twisting leaves with all the purple blooms of other allium.  Sounds interesting.  Here, below, is a closer look at the foliage on the Medusa Allium.  I bought five of them in quart-sized containers: I decided to fill a part of the front yard Island bed - along the driveway - with a colony or drift of these five Medusa Allium.  You can see them set up in their spots below: We'll see how these perform compared to my (current) favorite allium:  Serendipity.  

#7 on my 2024 to-do list was to 'do better containers' this year .  That meant doing DIFFERENT containers than I've done in the past.  This goes back to that whole 'get out of your comfort zone' thing that I confronted with flowers in the beds last Fall.  I told myself to resist early Spring and resist the Big Box store.  But, also...lean-in to what I liked about last year.  That 'what I liked' in our containers last year started and stopped with Euphorbia.   Last year, I bought one Euphorbia plant and tucked it in with some Zinnias from Northwind Perennial Farm .  Loved it.  I also saw that the Morton Arboretum used Euphoriba in one of their beds in the Fragrance Garden.  Lovely .  (That's also where I spotted Cardoon, too.) We have two large rectangular containers - one on back patio, one in the shade on our front porch.  Then, we have a large round planter on the patio and a couple smaller companion planters that sit on the ...