I’m asked often enough to name my favorite plant and season that it’s a little strange that hardly anyone* ever asks which is my favorite garden. Not that I could possibly pick a favorite (the pollinator garden). But since I featured the Rose Garden (my other favorite) last week, I can’t let this week go by without giving Blithewold’s pièce de résistance its due. Gail, Betsy, the volunteers — each group in their turn — and I spend a great deal of time, and mental and physical energy on keeping the North Garden as gorgeous as possible from one moment to the next. From the time the tulips bloom until the asters go to seed, that garden is meant to be in peak. We analyze and scrutinize every week for gaps in bloom and endeavor to fill them the following season if not immediately, holding ourselves to a limited color palette of yellow, blue (purple), pink, apricot, and white. This year saw changes to bring more elegance and formality to the borders, which are intensely planted, English-Garden style. We moved wild meadow-y coneflowers and anise hyssops out to the Pollinator Garden and planted more lilies, snapdragons, gladiolus, delphinium, new daylilies, sweet William, and summer hyacinth (Galtonia candicans), among other things. Gail decided to trial almost every variety of Salvia nemorosa we could get our hands on (more about our favorites later) and we are enjoying all of the different summer phlox we put in that that the deer haven’t eaten yet. The full list of plants in the North Garden, recently corrected but still full of mistakes, alas, is here. (Click on pictures below for a bigger view and use the arrows to scroll through.)

*Wouldn’t you know, not ten minutes after starting this post our volunteer seedstarter extraordinaire, Beverly, asked me that very question!

Do you have a favorite plant, season, or garden?