Beautiful Rain

90% of the gardens are in, with the veggie bed to do next. I shoulda taken results pictures when it was sunny yesterday afternoon, but waited til this morning, in the pouring rain! Silly me.
My goal this year was to revive all the beds by eliminating the disappointments and allowing the successes more space to flourish. Included in this goal was to make the back garden as lovely as the front, so we would spend more time there.
And...the hot tub was one of the disappointments. It was not working for months, and while Dave and a friend replaced the pump, it still didn't work right, and no one from the store or the manufacturer would come out to repair it. I was so frustrated that I was willing to give it away to anyone who would take it.

We decided that if it were gone, we'd need a shade structure on the back deck to make it more usable, so we called in our deck-studio-electrician-builder contractor, Keith. As a last ditch effort, we had him look at the hot tub problem. He worked on it with Dave for a while, manual in hand,  rewiring it correctly and vroom! it now works perfectly again. What a game changer. My spirits are flying!

So now that the tub works again I am even more interested in having a great garden to enjoy while soaking.
The back bed is filled with shrubs (azaleas and hydrangeas) as well as lots of perennials. It dawned on me that the pots I have could provide color with annuals, in front of the perennials, making a real display all summer. Why this never occurred to me before is a good question.


Dave and I worked on the back garden together, my favorite part of this experience. He dug a big hole and sunk this round planter, centering it in front of the half circle bed. It is filled with larkspur and either coneflowers or black eyed Susans. I can't remember...
Dave transplanted five miscanthus variegatus
from the holding bed in Dave's Memorial Garden, so now we have a total of eight glorious specimens. We like a BIG plant.






The snowball bush/tree is blooming with vigor, matching the white azaleas, and below it are big fat buds of iris. Also in this shot is a bare branch of our center redbud. No leaves on this limb. We have a bunch of pruning to do next.

I mentioned my hosta nursery of plants grown from seed, but neglected to explain that I DID NOT PLANT THEM. They just self seeded, and as I was transplanting other things in that bed, they were discovered, collected and planted together, so I could keep an eye on them. I imagine the seeds would be easy to collect in the winter and saved to plant in the soil as soon as it thaws. I haven't done that...yet, but it is worth a try as there are several nice specimens I would like to have in duplicate. I have learned patience over the years. Gardening helps that.