●●● North Corner Bed
I have always felt the back corner was a bit of an eye sore. The grass never really grew there, it looked barren and unhappy. The week before Mom came, Dave purchased a plumbago for me for Mother's Day. He knows I absolutely love the plant, but have killed so many of them, that I refuse to buy anymore. We thought about where a good partial shade spot would be, and decided the northern back corner might work. It gets a couple hours of morning sun, then the overhanging trees shade it. One little plumbago didn't do much to improve the eyesore however.
When Mom was here, she offered to buy me a bird bath for my birthday. We went to Natural Gardener (waaay to expensive) and the Home Depot (three concrete ugly ones) and then Lowe's. Lowe's had by far the best selection, and we picked out an awesome bird bath. It was very large, which is necessary for the hot summer temperatures here (so the water doesn't evaporate in an hour). While shopping, I also purchased two Cannas of a variety called Tropicanna. This is a new variety with orang-ish varigate leaves. We put all of these in that same bed, and transformed it from an eye sore to a really peaceful corner! I am so thrilled with the results!
●●● Porch Bed
All of the plants in my porch beds are perennials. Many are just a year or two old, so they are small, but I know they will eventually grow (unless I kill them first!).I asked Mom was she would do to the bed this year, and she suggested adding some annuals to fill in the places where the perennials would eventually grow.
We went shopping at Lowe's and found very few annuals. We did pick up six or so of an annual variety of red salvia. But since there were so few annuals, we also purchased some more perennials.
We added a Stella de Oro daylilly (a plant I have been wanting for awhile), one small Rudbeckia called "Becky Mix" and another called "Yellow Becky" (I don't think we realized we picked up two different varieties) These are both low to the ground plants with a daisy like flower. We also added two Arizona Sun Blanket Flowers.
With the addition of these plants, my bed looks really beautiful. (the wire fencing is to keep Domino from eating my plants!)
