Moving Some Rocks

The last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get some spots in the garden in order before it got too cold. One is shown here:

Stephi Gardens

Stephi Gardens

It’s a spot that in theory should be a good way to have dealt with the slope of the garden as opposed to the level patio. The problem that developed was that the small foot or so of garden that aligns with the lower grill area, just has become a place for dirt, leaves and other random outdoor junk to collect and wash onto the patio. Plants haven’t seemed to want to grow very well there, so it just became an a dirty eyesore. We had originally planted purple tuurtleheads and bee balm in the area, then added some other plants as things died back.

So finally this year, I decided this area needed a change. I had the stones moved forward to the edge of the brick and some plastic added to keep the dirt from washing in. There’ll be a bit of a slope, but it can’t be worse than the ugliness of what I am dealing with now. Neither of those original plants did great in this locations, so what’s left of them I’m moving them to other spots.

Moving the plants–a clump of turtlehead roots

Purple Tutleheads
and some very scraggly bee balm that needs more sunlight.

Bee Balm

The spurge that does do well here, I’ll split in the spring.  It’s about 5 years old so probably ready to split.  I’ve also been been finding such interesting Coral Bells (Heuchera) lately and they seem to like it here.  I’ll try to add some more of them and some interesting hosts and astilbe to round it out.  I’m hoping this impoves the look and keeps the patio a little cleaner.

Here’s what it looks like now, honestly not much better, but getting too cold to really do much.  The rest of the plants to be added and moved will need to be done in the spring.  At least I’m ready!

Stephi Gardens

Stephi Gardens

 

 

4 thoughts on “Moving Some Rocks

  1. Looks like you have a good approach. Happy plants always look better, so it makes sense to plant more of the Heuchera and Euphorbia. This spot may not satifsy your inner plant collector, but it will look good.

    1. First, thank you!
      When you are in WordPress “reader” you can just click follow at the top when you are on my page. Or if that’s not an option, in reader on the right is a “Blogs I follow: Edit” link. If you click edit, at the top of the next page you can enter any blog URL you want to follow in the reader. For me, just enter http://www.stephigardens.com and then press Follow next to it. It should be there then in your reader list. I hope that works. If not, email me and I can help you further.

    2. Thanks for the words of support. As much as I like diversity and trying new things, I also like happy plants, as you put it. Besides, within a plant family, there can be much interest. I love looking at all the different hostas I’ve collected. Some may see a sea a green, but it’s so much more than that.

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