There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder. Alfred Austin
Before I get into main point of today’s blog post, I thought I would share a couple of photos I took recently of the Vintage garden. I took these in early March while cleaning up the remains of last year’s garden. Solid proof that Old Man Winter’s reign is nearly at an end for the year.
Making peace with the garden
One of the first lessons a novice gardener learns is that “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” While the gardener may have an image of what the garden is supposed to look like, the garden itself often has plans of its own. And the sooner the gardener comes to terms with that fact, the sooner the gardener will stopping wasting his or her time, energy, and money on fighting the garden, and start working with the garden instead.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s perfectly fine to have a vision. But, sometimes that vision doesn’t comport with reality. For example, a gardener might buy a plant that likes partial to full sun, and there is a perfect spot for it in the border. Over time, a tree or shrub grows to full size, and now the plant is struggling in full shade. Or, conversely, the garden is a beautiful shade garden, full of Hostas, lungworts, and ferns. Then one night a windstorm blows a massive tree down, and all those wonderful shade-loving plants are getting blasted by the sun all day long.
It doesn’t even have to be that dramatic. You put a plant in a location where it is supposed to thrive, yet it sulks and underperforms, or gradually fades away to never be seen again. However, you find that it has reseeded itself clear across the yard, in a spot you wouldn’t never have thought to plant it. Monty Don, host of BBC’s Gardeners World (https://hdclump.com/category/gardeners-world-2025/), stated that when something like this occurs, the plant is telling you what it wants.
Gardening is always tinkering, tinkering and yet more tinkering.
Tinkering in the Vintage Garden 2025
Fortunately, my tinkering in the garden in the upcoming year is not too extensive. Mostly just filling gaps and moving a couple of plants that I feel would do better in a different location.
Let’s start with the waterwise front yard (update-on-the-front-yard-waterwise-renovation). Below you can see three daylilies that I planted in a half-moon raised border right next to the house. I took this picture the first year of the front yard renovation. As you can see, they flowered pretty good that year.
However, last year they hardly bloomed at all. I suspect that they are not receiving the amount of sunlight they would prefer. While daylilies do fine in partial sun, this border is not only under an eave of the house, it’s also under the overhang of the master bedroom. Not only that, there is a huge honeylocust tree casting filtered afternoon sunlight on the area.
So, where do I plan on moving them?
Right here, in front of this pine tree. This mass of dead brown material you see below is what’s left of last year’s asters. We put these asters in many, many years ago and they have overrun the area. We bought these particular asters from a local grocery store, because that is all we could afford at the time. The reason I am sharing this photo instead of one showing them in flower, is because I apparently never took any pictures of them in bloom! To say I have been less than whelmed by their performance is an understatement.
So, I am going to dig out the whole lot. I’ll put a buttload of compost in the area, and transplant the daylilies here sometime in late April or early May.
Not only should the daylilies perform better in the sunnier spot, but they should hopefully provide a much needed spark of interest in mid-summer. The garden goes into a lull during July and early August, when the heat is at its worst.
There is one plant that reliably blooms during that timeframe, and that is this real lily that the youngest Vintage daughter planted many years ago. My hope is that this lily, and the daylilies from the front yard, will bloom around the same time.
And in their place?
Last year I planted the two Hakenchloa ‘Beni-Kazi’ Japanese forest grasses you see below in a shady spot underneath the living room front window. I am going to plant three more into the spots the daylilies previously occupied. Japanese forest grass is not a waterwise as the daylilies, but they can handle the deeper shade much better.
What else?
I am still not happy with the back corner in backyard. This area has seen a lot of tinkering over the last couple of years. As you can see below, it’s a nice looking border. But this is the focal point of the backyard, and it’s just not pulling its weight. Since it is the first thing you see when entering the backyard, it needs to be really dramatic.
Last year I planted 3 ‘Red October’ Big Bluestem grasses for this area. Two of them died, dammit. Nevertheless, I am going to plant two of them again this year. If they don’t hack it, well, I guess that means they don’t like the area and I’ll have to come up with a new plan.
Below is a picture of ‘Red October’ I found somewhere in the interwebz.
Another sore spot for me is found in the birdbath border. We have a redbud tree growing next to the shed. And for some reason, we cannot get anything to grow under this tree. There are some trees, like black locusts, that produce a chemical called juglone. Juglone prevents many other plants from getting established around the base of the locust, reducing competition for moisture and nutrients.
Redbud is not one of those trees, so I have no idea why plants are struggling to get established. But, I have a plan. Below you can see a Blue Oat grass growing in front of the birdbath. Blue Oat grass in not a North American native, but it is a tough, drought-tolerant plant. One that I hope will thrive in this desolate area of the garden.
Back to the front yard
Let’s briefly wander back to the front yard. One of my all-time favorite native plants is known either as Desert 4 o’clock or Colorado 4 o’clock. This sucker is tough. I planted one behind the patio many years ago, and it has spread to take over most of the area. In a good way. I never have to water or fertilize it, and it comes back stronger every year. As the name implies, its purple flowers open up in late afternoon and evening, usually during the months of June and July. Although some years it sporadically blooms well into August.
The only downside of the plant is that when the first frost hits in autumn, the plant dies back to the ground. I mean, it completely dies back to the ground. All that remains over winter is some brittle brown twigs. No winter interest with this plant. The good news is that it is really easy to clean up in spring.
I am going to purchase and plant one of these in front of the honeylocust tree, near the street. Once it’s established, I won’t need to fret about it ever again.
I have several other areas I want to improve upon, but I think this is enough for one post. I’ll keep you informed on how the tinkering is going as the growing season goes on.
How about you? Every garden has weak spots. What’s yours, and what’s your plan to fix them?
