More Shrubbery
No, we're not dead. I just took some time off to study for a licensure exam, and Noel spent his time obsessing about making movies of our squirrel population. You know how it is.
Anyway, this weekend Berkeley Hort has deciduous shrubs 50% off (both 1-gal and 5-gal, but mostly 5-gal), so we popped over there this morning and threw down a bunch of money for six fine new shrubs (only three of which were deciduous, but you know how that is). Only one of those was a replacement of one I'd killed once before in this garden, so that's pretty good (and it was the dogs that did it, really).
I put a Daphne odora in the Fern Walk, replacing another shrub that was finally killed by snails. No photos of that one, because the Fern Walk is so incredibly bad right now that I don't even want to think about it, much less photograph it.
This is a Hebe: 'Turkish Delight'. It's planted near the chicken yard, alongside the bed of raspberries and grapes. In this garden, it has been my experience that Hebes want more water than I expected, perhaps because the sand drains so fast. They're theoretically drought-tolerant, but the ones I've planted in truly droughtlike places have all died, whereas the ones planted near sprinkler heads are quite happy.
This is Viburnum x. Burkwoodi. It's got a lovely scent, at the same time really flowery and also herbal. It's right by what will be a "breakfast nook" when we get around to swapping the dining room and kitchen. And right now it's a dining room, so even better. It's always good to plant nice scents around rooms where you like to sit with the windows open. In theory these get to 9 feet tall, but I've never seen one that large. And if it does, it has the room right there.
Noel really liked this, and I'd been meaning to add one: it's Leptospermum, or Tea Tree (but if you search on it all you find are tons of pages about Tea Tree oil). An Australian plant. Nice, tiny leaves and intensely pink flowers. Very drought tolerant (I've placed it along the back fence with Psorlea pinnata, a South African plant that has become an invasive pest in Australia; they like the same conditions). It's supposed to get 9 feet tall and 6 feet wide, but I've never seen one that large.
This is my second try at Ceanothus 'Marie Simon'; the dogs romped her to death two years ago. This one is larger. The tag says this gets to 4 ft tall and 15 ft wide, which I find a trifle difficult to believe, given the examples I've seen (more along the lines of 3 ft by 6 ft). It's in the back, near the Mme Alfred rose, where they can fight it out for resources.
And finally, Vitex agnus-castus, which is supposed to slowly grow to about 15 feet tall. I don't know about that, but I don't know any Vitexes around here so it's entirely possible. In really warm places it's supposed to shoot up to 25 ft tall, so please do everything you can to stop global warming, or I will have a real beast in my garden (assuming we aren't 10 feet underwater here, of course).
It's like a much bushier Buddleia, so I put it between two actual Buddleia, so that when they get tall and rangy it will fill in along the fence there. This was a 5-gallon pot, so it's got some nice size despite its youth.
In addition to this immoderacy, I also placed a large fall plant order with a catalog, and ordered a bunch of bulbs, and I intend to order a pile of compost to spread around sometime soon. So even though the garden has been feeling really sparse and sad to me, soon it will be filled in with all kinds of goodies.
Technorati Tags: autumn, gardening, plants, shrubs
posted by ayse on 09/13/08