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A NEW GARDEN BEGINS TO GROW

June 27, 2017

It’s been a while since I updated you on the progress of the circle garden, but it’s really coming along.

The brief history of this garden, which sits right by the front door, is that it was a weedy patch of dirt with a few perennials in it when we bought the house. I resurrected it as an oval garden divided into three segments, separated by curvy paths. It was a design that didn’t work—I see that now—but for a brief time it wasn’t terrible. Until it was. It needed a complete revamp and last fall I ripped it up and started from scratch.

I’ve gone more formal with the design, although it has a bit of an odd twist to it. There are four outer quadrants and a center circle, each delineated with a chive “hedge”, and each outer quandrant is divided into three sections with a boxwood in the center.

Each segment is mass planted with one plant. In the segment closest, there is rhubarb on the right, roses on the left and petunias in the front. On the opposite side, which is shadier, are Bobo hydrangeas, Hakonechloa ‘All Gold’ and Impatiens.
The center is simply planted with alyssum, Thai basil and new clematis, which are just starting to climb.
‘HS Flame’ dahlia provides great dark foliage, bright blooms and stays low enough that I shouldn’t have to stake it.

I chose the plants with an aim to get lots of color spread throughout the garden, a ton of texture and a foliage element in each area. There is a combination of shrubs, perennials and annuals, so some plants will take a few years to really come into their own.

It’s still early days for everything and I hope the annuals will fill in their areas appropriately, although I did have to go back and plant some purple sweet potato vine between the Impatiens as that area was definitely looking too sparse.

Even as new plants, the Bobo hydrangeas are absolutely covered in flowers.
New gravel will be added soon.
Egyptian walking onions are sort of an oddity, but for now they offer great texture in the garden.

The final step in this project is to fill in the paths with a decorative gray gravel. Right now the paths are just a limestone road base that I laid down in fall. I didn’t want to put the gravel in until I was finished planting as the longer I can keep soil out of the gravel, the longer I’ll be weed free there.

I made a video about the process. Check it out here.

circle garden formal garden planting planting plan
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
4 Comments

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previous post: FRIDAY FINDS
next post: A NEW WAY OF THINKING ABOUT STRUCTURE IN THE GARDEN

Comments

  1. Lisa Greenbow says: June 27, 2017 at 8:23 pm

    That frilly chive border is sweet. It all looks so healthy. Good job.

    Reply
  2. LINDA from Each Little World says: June 28, 2017 at 1:02 am

    It looks good. You can really see the concept even at this stage.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous says: June 28, 2017 at 11:23 am

    I think it turned out nicely. I like it a lot.
    What kind of stone is that?(edging)
    Melanie from Ohio

    Reply
  4. Becky says: June 29, 2017 at 9:33 pm

    Really nice garden. I liked your video a lot.

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Here’s a combo I’m totally digging this year: Wicked Witch coleus with Compact White Sunpatiens. I should have planted more Sunpatiens because they haven’t filled in as much as I expected in this part sun spot, but it’s a great look.
When you leave your garden in the middle of summer you know there’s going to be some clean up on the back end. It’s amazing how the little things we do every day in the garden, even when we’re not “working” in it—pulling a weed, propping up a plant, tucking tendrils into a trellis—add up to important jobs. And you don’t realize that until they aren’t being done. 

When I came home after 8 days away I was planning to whip the whole garden into shape and ended up spending all day in the vegetable garden where things went awry quickly. 

I was rewarded though with lots of cucumbers and zucchini and a few pretty bouquets to put around the house. This is Madame Butterfly Bronze with White (a name I don’t understand at because I wouldn’t use any of those words to describe the color) snapdragon and Apricot Shades strawflower. 

Check the link in the bio to see the whole video and what I found when I first laid eyes on the garden after some time away.
It’s a nighttime hunt in the garden and it’s the best time to find hornworms. You’ll need a black light and a tough gag reflex but you have to remove these guys from your tomato plants or they’ll be gone quickly. If you find a hornworm with white things that look like grains of rice in it, that is parasitic wasp larvae that will eat them from the inside (everything about this is gross). Remove those hornworms from your plants but don’t kill then as you’ll be aiding the beneficial bug population by allowing those parasitic wasps to hatch. For other hornworms you can kill them or feed them to chickens or put on your bird feeder. They do turn into beautiful, big moths but you want to make sure they can’t get back to your plants if you let the hornworms live.
When it comes Echinacea, @garden.evolution (aka Coneflower king) and I don’t often agree, but I think we both feel the same about Color Coded ‘The Price is White’ being an outstanding variety. The flowers are big and flat, hold their white color really well, are sturdy and, well, put on a great show. I’m loving them growing with Rock ‘n Grow ‘Back in Black’ too. Both are @provenwinners varieties from @waltersgardens

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