Home of the Practically Perfect Pink Phlox and other native plants for pollinators

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

If You Squint Your Eyes


This will probably be the only snow we will get this season, so here is my official blog photo.  

The photo is taken from the porch steps and if you  look closely   (squint your eyes and use your imagination), at the end of the walk is our driveway.  Directly across the driveway is my official wildflower garden. The wildflower garden was my first native plant garden and the reason you will find me waiting in line for the Howe   Wild Plant Fair to open each year.  This year it is March 28-29. at Cheekwood.    I'll be there.  Hope to see you.  



As long as I have your attention!  To the left of the sidewalk is a small bed of native shrubs, spring ephemerals and perennials. In its former life it was a badly landscaped foundation bed sitting in front of one of those worthless bricked in planters (a dry sunless place) that are ubiquitous to this neighborhood.   There is a good mixture of everygreen plants...PJM Rhodos (Olga Mezitt), Christmas Fern (polystichum acrostichoides), foam flower (Tiarella cordifolia)  and phlox divaricata (May Breeze).  There is also a  woody shrub,   my all time favorite native shrub Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia).  Sprinkled throughout are  grape hyacinth bulbs, miniature  dafs and Trout lily.    We planted River Oats (Chasmanthium  latifolium)  and Christmas Fern in the planter...both ought to survive, I just hope I don't regret planting the river oats....they are very thuggish and reseed madly.  

I love natives and recommend them to folks whenever I can!  They make sense...and they survive in my yard.  But when you see my garden you will notice that there are plenty of non native plants.  So don't think I am anti non natives....it's just my prefered  choice is native.

I have only seen the  new and improved  foundation planting/bed in the fall.  The color was lovely.  Can't wait to see how it looks in bloom this spring. 

Thanks for letting me ramble.
Gail

6 comments:

  1. Welcome to blogdom! We needed another TN gardening voice, and a voice for wildflowers is always a voice worth listening to. Thanks for visiting my blog. I have added you to my sidebar, I add everyone who leaves a comment and whose blog passes my stringent, not, test. May I suggest if you have not already done so, to join Blotanical, just click on the badge at the top of my blog to get there.

    Frances at Faire Garden

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  2. hi gail, another tennessee blogger! wonderful. we have such a great state to garden in there should be many more of us. i think there are more just not so many registered in the garden blog world. i checked the tennessean website and they have some garden bloggers there.

    where are you? close to nashville? you say middle tennessee. i am in the clarksville area but go to school in nashville and attend the perennial plant society meetings there monthly. the nashville lawn and garden show is coming up and that is a great show. i also go to jackson tennessee each summer for summer celebration. dave is the other tennessee blogger and i believe he is south of nashville.

    well anyhow, welcome. i am looking forward to seeing your garden. 20 years worth of gardening it should be really special. i have gardened in my home only about 7 years. not long in the gardening world.

    p.s. one of my all time favorite shrubs is also oakleaf hydrangeas. you can't beat them!

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  3. Tina,

    So glad you stopped by...I am planning on attending the March perennial plant meeting...hope to see you there. I am going to rejoin...not sure why I never kept my membership active. I garden in Nashville.

    I had a back injury so my garden was terribly neglected and I am working very hard to get it back into shape...hiring a landscape designer was a necessity. It took me a long time to give myself permission to invite someone into my mess.

    We do have a wonderful state and there have to be more than 4 bloggers. How can we find them? The Austin TX garden bloggers get together often; I am a bit envious of them.

    Thanks for stopping by, I am going to add you to the list of blogs I visit.

    Thanks,
    Gail

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  4. yes, i will definitely be at the meeting this tuesday at 7 pm. the subject is dear deer don't eat here by carolyn hoyne. the location will be at 5800 hillsboro road at the hillsboro church of Christ. normally it is at cheekwood but only for this month it is changed.

    look for me there (i will have a name tag on) and will be with my friend gerrianne. i will also look for you and can't wait to meet you!

    i am wondering if dave from the home garden will come as well. he is close to nashville.

    there are surely more tennessee bloggers but i don't think we are as well networked as the austin bloggers and we definitely don't have their numbers. austin probably has a longer growing season than us and maybe that is part of it. i don't know really. more tennesseans will join though, you can bet.

    see you tuesday night. i will be doing a post on the meeting to let my readers know of it. right now only geri and i are from clarksville but hopefully that will change. i love the society and have been in it for over three years now. i must pay my dues on tuesday that is one good reason to attend. i think pps has SO much to offer us gardeners. i wish i lived a little closer to jackson tn as there is a lot going on down there too.

    see ya tuesday and i will be visiting your blog regularly. i don't always comment but always read and learn SO much from other bloggers-all of them!

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  5. Pam/Digging says:

    Ramble away! Your new sidewalk looks lovely, and I even like the name of the stone: Doe Skin. Like you, I'm a native plant fancier, though I've been branching out a bit lately. Still, it's great to have tough natives as the foundation of the garden.

    Welcome to garden blogging. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. If I may offer one piece of advice, I'd suggest you enable anonymous or non-Blogger comments. As it is, you're restricting your commentors to those who happen to have Google/Blogger accounts, but there are many bloggers who don't. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
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