Front Garden Report East 2025- #1

This post will get long, but I want to get all this documented. Browse until you get tired of pictures.

I sure never thought I'd get the east end of this flower bed looking this good in only a couple of years. Due to the birthday money this year, and a bunch of free and marked down plants in the past couple of years, I've been able to fill it in fairly well. But I need to remember to take pictures earlier in the afternoon when the light isn't all dappled like this.

This is the east end of the east side.

Here it is from a lower angle with the lily of the valley patch (that is really outside the garden) behind it.

I've showed you some of these already this year. The blue is the Variegated Ajuga

The west end of the east side is a jungle. This is mixed up Globe Bellflower and the Dwarf Solomon's Seal. This is going to be a real mess to separate. I'll probably just rip out the plants that aren't in the section where I want them. This is what happens when you don't have a plan and you let two aggressive plants grow without control. However, I'm going to wait until the Bellflower blooms because it's already getting buds.

Now lets do a tour of some plants. Here you can see the 'Wiggles and Squiggles' Hosta I showed you earlier this year. It's really happy, and one leaf of the 'Forbidden Fruit' Hosta is on the right. Above that is an Astilbe (really cheap two years ago) and some tiger lilies (plant sharing with a friend last year). The new plant here is another purple Heuchera, 'Season's King' (reasonably priced).

If you look in the first picture above, you'll see a reddish heuchara encircled by the 'Mouse Ears' Hosta, 'Wiggles and Squiggles,' and 'Forbidden Fruit.' OK, I gave into temptation and paid full price for this one. It's another Heuchera, 'Carnival Cinnamon Stick.' I orginially put the 'Season's King' there, but it just needed something brighter. I resisted buying this one once, but the next trip to the store, it jumped into my cart.

Here's an unhappy Hosta, 'Vulcan.' It was another of my almost freebies two years ago. Not sure why it's so small. I don't seem to have any pictures of it from last year, so maybe I accidentally cut it off and it's just recovering. Now it's labeled so I can find it, and it should be OK in another year.

Mixed in with the old 'Francee' Hosta are two of the Allium I got at the Garden Club sale last fall. They are healthy, but I don't think they are going to bloom this year. That's OK, they'll be a nice surprise for the future. The 'Francee' is finally recovering from being chewed to the ground by the deer two years in a row.

Now let's talk about lilies. There are a couple of pathches of Tiger Lily that I was given last year. They seem to be healthy and growing, but they might not bloom this year.

This is the yellow mystery lily that I have no idea where it came from. One year it got eaten, last year it had three blossoms. It looks pretty good this year, but I'll probably miss seeing it bloom because of my hike.

I'm pretty excited about these. Can you see three lilies starting to come up among the 'Francee' Hosta? I got six bulbs for half price earlier this year. They are a variety called 'Landini.' I'll keep it a surprise what they will look like, and of course they may not bloom this first year. But I'm happy to say that all six came up. If they bloom it should be after I get home from the hike.

Finally, this is one spot of organization in the west mess. Last year I put in some of these small hosta near the front of the bed. I have no idea what variety these are. I think they came from Ester. They don't match much of anything in pictures I peruse. They stay small, and the leaves have narrow yellow edges. They make a nice border (you can see the black edging along the front of the photo). Oh, I guess I didn't catch it in the pictures, but last year I spread more of the 'Tiny Tears' Hosta to the very front of this edge as well, and it's spreading nicely.

That's plenty! But I did get a pretty good record of the work done.

I mowed all the grass up here on the hill. I'm not a super lawn-care person, but I have to say that it looks pretty nice mowed as opposed to the mess it's been a lot of years. Also did the computer tasks, blah, blah. Quite productive, and the mower is good conditioning for my core since I still don't have the seat modified. Tomorrow I play.

See Front Garden Report 2024 #3