As I mentioned the other day, one of my goals in the garden this year is to do a better job of edging one of the flower beds in my side garden. I created it in haste and frustration a few years ago after a severe heat wave zapped the grass that had been living there. Out of deference to our HOA, I’d been struggling to keep the grass on the hot, sunny slope alive since we moved in, but I don’t even like grass that much, so when most of it died after the heat wave, I finally took it as a sign to stop pulling my hair out over it and replace it with heat and drought tolerant flowers that would be easier to keep alive, better for pollinators and other local wildlife, and prettier.
Unfortunately, because of the poor edging job I did back then, the flowers were starting to get invaded by grass again in some areas, so I’ve spent the last week or so re-digging the edge of the garden bed and pulling out as much invading grass as I can. This evening, I laid down the first section of new edging bricks to help keep the grass out.
It was such a lovely evening that I lingered even after I finished with the bricks, and decided to take some pictures.
Right now the creeping phlox is done, the iris are fading, the lupines are just past peak, and the Rocky Mountain penstemon is in full glory.
That’s some wild bergamot (Monarda didyma, aka bee balm) in the foreground, also bursting into bloom at this time of year. Alas, I seem not to have recorded the cultivar of this particular plant, though I have some ‘Sugar Buzz® Bubblegum Blast’ elsewhere. I’ve always had a soft spot for monarda’s quirky blooms; they make me think of an alien spaceship, or perhaps a bad case of bedhead.
Hummingbirds also like monarda, although not as much as they love my Siberian Catmint (Nepeta sibirica ‘Souvenir d’Andre Chaudron’) planted in another bed nearby. I saw two feasting on that this evening. Unfortunately, Siberian Catmint is non-native, yet has proven an extremely enthusiastic fan of my yard, so I have to keep it confined or it will stage a takeover. It’s in the mint family, so I should have foreseen its vigor, but I was lulled into complacence by my experience with my much better behaved Nepeta x fassenii ‘Junior Walker’ catmints. I’ve decided not to kill the ‘Souvenir d’Andre Chaudron’, however, out of consideration for the hummingbirds. They really do adore it. I see them on it almost every day in summer. My son also loves it, because every time I cut it back to keep it from launching a new invasion, he gets to sell the flowers to the neighbors as bouquets. Last time he made $25.
Returning to the main flower bed, one of the garden centers near my home used to have a rather interesting array of alpine wildflowers, both native and non-native. (Alas, the owner retired a few years ago, and the new owners have not maintained the collection.) One of the non-native ones I acquired was an Alpine aster (Aster alpinus ‘Dark Beauty’), which, after a slow start, is now thriving. It was looking especially vibrant in the lighting tonight:
I used to have a lot of native asters in my gardens in the Midwest, and they’re something I might add as I expand this garden a little bit while I’m re-edging it. The species I used to grow most often, New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae), gets a little taller than I want for this particular garden, so I need to decide on a shorter species.
Near the aster is a pasque flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris ‘Papageno’) from the same collection of alpine flowers. Like the aster, it’s a European relative of our native pasque flower, Pulsatilla patens (aka Pulsatilla nuttalliana), which I hope to acquire someday as well. Finished with its blooms for the year, it’s still a striking addition to the garden:
Next, here’s a close-up look at the Rocky Mountain penstemon (Penstemon strictus), one of the native flowers I got from the same alpine collection. I’ve become a huge fan of penstemons (aka beardtongues) in recent years. We have so many beautiful native varieties and they thrive in hot, sunny, rocky conditions, which I have a lot of in my garden. Bees and other pollinators love them, too. I saw at least four different species buzzing among the blooms tonight. You can see what is probably a metallic green sweat bee (Agapostemon virescens) peeking out of one of the flowers in the photo below:
I love the vibrant blue of the Rocky Mountain penstemon, and they’ve been very successful in my garden. I also have some very showy Penstemon x mexicali hybrid cultivars, and two more native penstemons: Venus Penstemon (Penstemon venustus) and Davidson’s penstemon (Penstemon davidsonii) to round out my collection, and I hope to acquire more. The Davidson’s penstemon is the first to bloom of the species I have, and it’s just finishing up right now. Here is its very last cluster of blooms for the year:
I like Davidson’s penstemon very much, because it produces abundant purple flowers every spring and makes an attractive green mat the rest of the year, in a particularly dry and rocky spot in my yard. I will probably plant more of it now that I know how well it does here.
Looking through these pictures reminds me of how happy I am with how the garden is progressing, despite its rather disorganized and ill-planned beginning. I’m especially happy that there is at least one type of flower (and usually two, three, or more) blooming in the garden from April until October or November. It’s an ever-changing display that’s both beautiful and buzzing (literally!) with life.
