My State of the Garden Address

Our president gave us his State of the Union address for 2010 this week and informed us of his plans and his thoughts so I thought why not do the same for my garden? It’s been a while since I’ve addressed the garden as a whole entity as usually I just discuss its parts or its plants. Let me start off by saying it’s not necessarily a pretty picture. It is winter after all!

As I walked around the gardens today I had an opportunity to view what has been accomplished and what has yet to be done. The front garden hasn’t undergone many changes over the last year but it is due for some redeveloping. The Russian sage on the left of the sidewalk has grown large and it is time for it to be tamed or moved. It’s wispy and bare now but its white stems make an attractive winter feature and would look especially nice in front of an evergreen backdrop. I clip it back each spring but it likes to grow, and grow, and grow – I really can’t blame it! I have some options on a new location but then I’ll have to figure out what to put in its place…

I walked around the other side of the house to the self-sowing/self-seeding garden. It’s inaugural year was very progressive and was full of blooms. Rudbeckia, sunflower, salvia, zinnias and several other plants filled up the seats in this garden.

And I couldn’t fully evaluate the state of the garden without the arbor. (Arbor and The House) I still enjoy looking at it. I feel like I won the BHG.com prize even though I lost out to a front porch repainting (it was pretty, definitely not our style though!). I saw in the recent Tennessee Gardener magazine and article about roses that had pictures of roses climbing all over gates – it’s a very tempting idea for this arbor don’t you think?

Past the arbor you will find one of my favorite gardens – during the growing season that is! The corner shade garden is filled with heucheras, hostas, astilbe, and an oak leaf hydrangea. The large evergreen tree on the left will be leaving very soon for multiple reasons: it’s too big to be this close to the house and it’s covered with bagworms. I could spray the worms (at the right time, when the larvae are still young) and probably get rid of them or handpick the ones I can reach but when you have more than one issue with a plant it might be time to go a different route. I tried the handpicked route once before and I couldn’t find all the bagworms. I have two ideas for its replacement either a dogwood (Cornus florida although I wouldn’t mind a Cornelian Cherry Cornus mas) or a Forest Pansy Redbud. If I go the latter route I’ll move the one I have to its new location.

The border garden looks mostly bare but the ornamental grasses do liven things up. The birch I planted in spring did fantastic this year and is already beginning to show its characteristic peeling bark. I can’t wait to take a similar photo of this area in the spring, summer, and fall so that I can see the seasonal changes. 

This little rose campion is sporting some nice silver green foliage in the rain garden. There are quite a few other plants with foliage showing like the irises, daffodils, hyacinths, and several others. It’s still January but if you look you can see spring coming.