How Does Your Garden Grow Part II

This is the driveway garden. This garden also did well this year. The perennials came up wonderfully and the mystery plants turned out to be a beautiful White Phlox and and some sort of Mum.

As with the driveway garden I expanded a bit, since I had the time... I really enjoyed the mix of perennials and annuals. When I first started gardening, I only used annuals. Then I expanded to the perennials, which really helps building an established garden. I like adding in the annuals to fill in blanks spots, plus some off the annuals ended up being the work horses of the garden, blooming longer than most of the perennials.

Some of my favorites in this garden this year were the Pomegranate Achillea (just starting to bloom in the picture with Mr. Max), the White Phlox, the White Cleome and the Snapdragons.

This last picture is of the Passion Flower I grew on the fence. Last year's Passion Flower did not make it through the winter, so I dug up this year's plant and brought it inside. Wish me luck, I'm much better with plants in the garden, than with the ones in the house.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

An old friend of mine commented on my garden blog post from April and I realized I had not updated this since I first started it. I think most of my gardens did exceptionally well this year. It helps being home full time, plus there were very few super hot periods so they all received lots of attention.

These pics are of the side garden. I expanded this garden at the beginning of the season and am really happy that I did. This garden has taken years to understand. It gets the best and hardest sun, so it's important to put things here that can handle the conditions. It also helps to have some tall plants like the butterfly bushes and Maiden Grass to provide some shade.

Those plants did well here, and so did the Echinacea, Lavender, Rosemary, Russian Sage and Roses (although I had keep them sprayed with Deer Off).
One interesting development in this garden was the surprise appearance of the Wave Petunias. I did not plant these here, at least not this year. Several years back I had some Wave Petunias here and must have activated some old seeds in the soil when I turned it up during the expansion. During the August heat they really took off and were a great addition to the garden.