Garden Talk - to get through winter :)

[Doberluv]

Originally Posted by sassafras

I didn't plant any bulbs this year, but it was the first year I got the garden completely prepared for winter before... winter. My entire front yard (it's a small city lot), part of the boulevard, and one whole side of the house are all perennial gardens, so it's a fairly substantial job.

I've been slowly trying to convert over to natives over the years, partially because they are so low maintenance. But I love peonies so much that I will never get rid of them. I don't have any pictures of the whole garden from this year, but here are a few individual plants:

This is a native called pussy toes, a nice low ground cover.


This is one of my very favorites, called prairie smoke. Apparently large groups of this plant blooming on the prairie looked like wisps of smoke to early settlers.


Marsh marigold, another favorite of mine.


Joe Pye weed. I don't really know who Joe Pye was, but this is a really tall and beautiful native.


I'll dig up some others eventually.

Oh! *gasp* these are all simply gorgeous. And I mean simply. I love their non-pretentiousness. I must look for some of those for next year if they'll do all right here....probably, huh. (?) I wonder if something there might work in between the cracks in my flagstone patio. Or do they stand up too high? When putting in the flagstones, I purposely kept them a good couple inches apart...even more so I could plant stuff in between them. I can't wait to see pictures of your garden...maybe next summer. I'm hoping my yard will be finished enough (it will never be finished...always a work in progress) to take some pictures. Next summer we'll have to make another garden thread.