Sunday, August 01, 2004

Last July Day
I spent the last day of July in my garden - eight hours. The result is a large mound of detritus with a small portion of the garden looking great. I weeded, deadheaded, cut back and staked. The entry path and garden look great. The border of ladies' mantle undulates in its fresh green growth. The columbine foliage is no longer brown and stalky. The perennial salvia are little clumps of blue-green foliage. The pinks are no longer covered with dead flower stalks. And the Siberian iris foliage is not flopping over its neighbors.

Next I will tackle the shade garden where all sorts of weeds are lurking and the spent stalks of the hosta blooms are waiting for the compost pile.

There are two spots of incredible beauty. The bed between the hill and the pond is sparkling with a traditional mix of black-eyed susans and coneflowers, with a few late-blooming daylilies adding to the bright display. The other spot is in the shade garden where magic lilies have poked up between late blooming astilbes. The fern-like astilbe foliage anchor the bare stemmed lilies, and the pink and lavender astilbe blooms perfectly complement the colors of the lilies.

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