Lovely Little Lamb Hydrangea

Spent four hours in the backyard edging flower beds. Hard work, but of course they look terrific!

The Little Lamb hydrangea has a bouncing white spire at the tip of nearly every branch. Last summer the plant was younger and smaller and had six huge cones weighing down the branches. This year the blooms are more in tune with the catalog description: diminutive, i.e., bouncing little lambs. Gorgeous!

You can see a photo here http://www.colorchoiceplants.com/little_lamb.htm, although I'd hardly call my plant a dwarf. It's easily 5.5 ft tall.

Loves the location: morning sun. Looks beautiful with red and white swamp hybiscus and American beautyberry. Some Joe Pye, cardinal flower and Mexican petunia in the background.

Georgia

Spotlight on the Chaste tree

Each time I drive around the corner to my house, the Chaste tree in my front yard knocks me out. Long, blue flowers covering the tree have been blooming since early June and when the sun shines on them they light up the yard.

I have two specimens. One was labeled a Chaste tree, the other a Texas lilac, when I bought them at different nurseries. I've since learned they're the same plant. One was shaped as a tree, the other is smaller and shrub-like. I guess I can prune them both into trees.

I'm wondering if the dried blooms are desirable to birds. If I clip them off, I might get another bloom later in the summer.

Besides being beautiful, the Chaste tree is drought-tolerant. Yeah!

An English Cottage Garden

My friend Arlene paid me the nicest compliment yesterday. "You've made an English cottage garden," she said, walking down the stone path through my front yard past yellow daylilies, purple sage, Spanish lavender, and exquisite Praire Sun black-eyed susans. Her pleasure made memories of the back-breaking work of the past two springs fade.

I'm having luck with tomatoes this year, finally. Bigger Boy, Better Boy and Sweet 100 are tall, lush and sporting both flowers and little fruits. MMmmmmmmmmmmm. Can't wait for that home grown flavor. We'll see if the compost I've been nursing along for three seasons will do the job.

Georgia

Welcome to the chat

Hi, there,

Thanks for taking the time to share your wisdom about gardening along the Carolina coast. I'm especially interested in advice on growing tomatoes and other vegetables. My veggie garden is pitiful at this point. I know we have at least one master coastal gardener in the group who can guide us along. Others have been living and gardening in the south a long time and have the advantage of experience. Thanks for sharing!
Georgia

Raleigh Garden Tour

My quest to eliminate turf in my front yard took a major leap this spring with two large areas moving over to Angelina sedum, purple heart, ponytail grass, sweet broom, orange coneflowers, a Chaste tree, oleander and Texas lilac. And of course mulch.

But the big news is the enjoyable and enlightening tour of Raleigh-area gardens a friend and I took last weekend with Carolina Gardener magazine, which has sponsored 13 of these sojourns to southern cities. Next year's tour might--might--be in Charlottesville, Va.

The trip's highlight for me was Tony Avent's Juniper Level Botanic Gardens, acres and acres of trees, shrubs and perennials, all grown without chemical additives or fertilizers. Tony is adamant about that, claiming nothing should be put into a garden that isn't organic.

Tony travels all over the world seeking new plants and conducts research at the Raleigh site. His mission statement talks about plant conservation, evaluation, identification, exploration, propagation and education. That covers everything.

He and wife Michelle support their research with a mail order business called Plant Delights Nursery. The garden/research center is open to the public eight times per year: two weekends each in spring, summer, autumn and winter.

We also saw private gardens, the garden formerly known as the Hobbit Garden, and the JC Raulston Arboretum. One private garden was exceptionally thrilling and featured a 20-foot tall sectioned mirror in one corner that reflected the entire garden. My first question was: Does the wind blow in Raleigh?

Last spring's Charleston tour was memorable for its small city gardens. The Raleigh area offered gardens on a grander scale. I came home with workable ideas from both (and a van full of plants).

New Year, New Garden

Now that I've cleared away the Christmas clutter, the unfinished front yard beckons. Bright green weeds and dead gray grass scream for attention.

Since I bought a pick ax last fall, received a garden scooter from my kids for Christmas, and enlisted my husband's help for the heavy hacking, and since winter insists on being mercifully mild, there's no excuse not to finish the job.

After I tame the terrain, I promise to spread one shade and one type of mulch over all the front yard gardens, which now, sadly, reflect every type and shade of mulch on sale at Lowe's and Home Depot over the last year.

Seeing two bright pink flowers on a patch of creeping phlox cuddled next to the flagstone is stimulating and not something I'd see in Massachusetts this time of year. Ah, the joys of coastal Carolina.

A test of thyme

A co-worker up north told me years ago that whenever a patch of grass died in her lawn, she planted creeping thyme in its place. So, having a patchwork quilt-like front lawn, I’ve turned a tiny section into a creeping thyme test site, planting a handful of varieties. Four have survived the summer heat (my front yard gets full sun all day long). Even one, tough spreader that makes it through the winter will be thrilling.

Garden Tour
I saw this technique enforced on James Island near Charleston, where a homeowner planted thyme and creeping phlox in her front yard amidst azaleas, magnolias and a variety of flowering shrubs. No grass. It looked lovely.

I was in and around Charleston visiting private gardens with a tour sponsored by Carolina Gardener magazine. The James Island gardens were casual; what I’d call woodland gardens. The Charleston sites in the historic district were more formal, as expected, and made the best use of small spaces.

One thing that struck me was that each garden made its own shade. Here on the coast, where the summer sun beats the ground, my friends and I complain about not having shade in our gardens. Well, these Charleston gardens—in an even hotter, more humid climate—manufactured shade with trees and shrubs of every height, supplemented by trellises and brick walls covered with vines heavy with roses, clematis and Confederate jasmine.

Of course, my neighbors and I are not about to surround our houses with brick walls here in Wilmington, but we can certainly plant trees and let our shrubs grow taller. Grouped together and positioned against the sun, they’ll create a cooler, shadier environment for plants easily sunburned.

Groundcovers
But back to groundcovers. A neighbor sent me an e-mail saying she’s “contemplating a no-grass front yard…lots of low-growing ground covers and small bushes, since I know dirt won’t ever be in fashion.” My sentiments exactly.

One groundcover that already looks like a winner for me is Angelina sedum, which changes color depending on the temperature: golden yellow in spring; orange in autumn. When I first saw it in a nursery a year ago it even had red tones. I have three under a Fringe tree along with prostrate rosemary and Lithodora.

Among the many groundcovers I’m experimenting with are Weihenstephaner gold sedum (doing very well), creeping Jenny (hanging in there but has lost the chartreuse color that attracted me) and creeping phlox (bloomed profusely in April). Sweet woodruff and Irish moss didn't make it. Too much sun and not enough water.

Ice plant is also doing well in a former sandpit near the sidewalk. It's heat and drought tolerant, but of course, I supplemented with good garden soil and covered with mulch. One Gaillardia (blanket flower) is struggling; the other dried up. And this stuff even grows on the beach (!).