2024 Rock Garden Report 3 and Top Line

 Today, I was back on track and operating on all cylinders!

The last bit of rock garden to weed for this round was along the top edge.

Then I gave the whole thing a watering. We got a little rain here last night, but the gage only said a trace, so I thought it could use a bit more.

This continues to be one of my favorite spaces in the garden with nice large areas of contrasting color. Note that these are all foliage colors- it looks great even when nothing is blooming. The tall sedum is a gift from Margaret. Don't know which variety. The red is the 'Wildfire' Sunsparkler Sedum. (In the running with 'Firecracker' for my favorite purchase of the year.) The white is the Lamb's ear, and the yellow is the 'Lemon Coral.' The greenery around the edges is the Bloody Cranesbill. It's not looking too good. That's what makes me think things got awfully dry while I was gone. I'm not worried. I'd be very happy to kill some of that. I'm ripping chunks out as I get things to replace it. I think I'll try to keep a limited number of clumps, but I'm liking it less and less.

Here' a second clump of the Sedum 'Ezawe.' The clump I showed you the other day that got shaded looks completely different. Definitely want to keep this one in the sun for it to look its best.

This is one I haven't shown you before. It's Sedum hybrid 'CoralJade.' The leaves were more purple earlier, but now they are getting orangy and it's in bud. It's supposed to make a very round mound. I think it's going to be great.

And I'm also very happy with this space, although the tall one is the other Sedum that will have to come in for the winter. I didn't realize that when I bought it. I thought it was hardy. But I like it enough to try to save it. The green in the front is the Sedum elecambeanum, which is very successful. But I really like the contrast of the textures. The back one is Sedum linare 'Sea Urchin.' The color started the season as a very light green, and is now getting pinkish.

And now for the overall progress. Here is the rock garden today from the deck.

Here is is in April of this year.



And at the end of August last year.



Pretty big improvement for one year, eh? I just have to show you one more. This is the straight-onto-the-hill view today.

And this is what it looked like on June 2,2023 (just shy of 14 months ago), when I had barely started trying to recover the space.



I did all the stuff- editing, cleaning, working on volunteer projects, working on the lawmower.

See Up the Middle