Garden Report: successes and failures

Although the summer is far from over (I keep telling myself), I’m already looking at what plantings worked and what didn’t.  It’s educational to keep at least a mental note of these successes and failures so the next time I’m tempted to buy, say, another fabulous rose bush, I’ll just slap my hand. In a previous post, I mentioned that I was wildly inspired to buy new rose bushes after spending time in Italy.  Although the bushes I ended up planting are not dead, they are not thriving either.  All of them were badly attacked by blackspot, and one was almost completely defoliated.  It reminded me that blackspot is the reason I stopped buying roses. The three that were already in my garden seem to be almost immune to the disease, but previous roses that eventually died or were tossed out, were always getting that dratted scourge.  Well, the jury’s still out on these three, but let’s say they aren’t a roaring success.

On the plus side, I planted creeping thyme,  lavender, creeping jenny, and

day lilies at the side of the house and they’ve all done extremely well.  I almost never water that side so anything I plant there has to be drought-tolerant.  I succeeded in snuffing out much of the grass there, except for some that is growing up through the ground cover phlox, so my goal of eliminating grass on my property is closer to realization.

Next area to tackle is the front garden, which is (I’ve mentioned it before), an eyesore and an embarrassment.  I want to rid myself of the lawn, and put in a different dependable (low-maintenance) ground cover instead, as well as some more drought-tolerant plants that will thrive in shade without much care.  It’s quite a challenge, but I’m pumping myself up for it!  Next holiday (i.e., next week) I’ll be building stone walls and covering grass up with newspaper, compost and mulch.  I can’t wait to see the transformation! I will post some before-and-after pictures.

Just for fun: some Magic Flute! Papagana-Papagano…

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