Now that we’ve relocated all the perennials we had-to-had-to move and frantic spring is speeding along to an early languid summer (can you believe the maples that are fully leafed out already?!), I feel like we’ve turned a corner on the track and gone from a mad dash to a steady lope. We’re placing and planting cool season annuals, new perennials and shrubs and now the gardens are really taking shape. I have renewed energy to just go and go to the finish. We’ve still got self-imposed deadlines (everything planted by the 4th of July) but Gail and I can pace ourselves now. Three weeks ago, even Dick, who plants and tends the Vegetable Garden, said he felt at least a month behind. Now he says he’s not worried and not feeling rushed. (He is here every day though…) — I love seeing Dick in the garden – somehow, all’s right with the world when he’s here.

Yesterday, the Deadheads weeded the Idea Beds while Gail and I placed plants in the Cutting Garden and in the new raised bed by the pond. We’re planting that with our favorite Pennisetum ruppelianum, Salvia, Dahlia combination for old-time’s sake (the dahlia/grass beds around the pond were taken out in the first phase of the Display Garden redesign).

In the Cutting Garden we use concrete reinforcement mesh as a staking system. Planting through the grid is a little tedious but it’s worth it in the long haul because the heavy-on-bloom plants don’t flop over! (we raise the grids up on stakes for the plants to grow through – like a peony hoop).

The North Garden is being planted now with the first round of annuals and a few new perennials and later, Gail and I will place the new shrubs for the Rose Garden re-vitilization project. (I’ll have a lot to say about that as we go)

Here are a couple pictures of my current obsessions. One of the things that’s great about public gardens (whether you work in one or are a visitor) is that you get to look at established plants with an eye for how they’d look in your own garden! (so much better than just looking at a picture on a tag or a runty individual in a nursery pot!). I can’t stop thinking about crabapples and blueberries… Look at those colors!