Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Beltsville Library Courtyard Garden

I haven't talked about this garden lately but it's moving along. All I've done for month's is a tiny winter cleanup and some cutbacks. The Library has a maintenance service that takes care of all their grounds. Usually they ignore the courtyard leaving it to me, but this winter they did their own cutbacks(the spireas, good; the Smokebush ???not so sure, but it's at least okay) blew away the last of the leaves and mulched. That was good for me.

I'm excited to see how some of the new plants do like the Sambucus 'Black Beauty'; the foliage ought to be great against the faux stucco wall. 'Basjoo', the hardy banana is in it's second year; it ought to respond well to being in an enclosed area like this. The Needle Palm, Rhapidophyllum is in it's third year and really starting to take off. The yellow Oakleafed hydrangea looked good; it has grown. There are a number of small old roses too that I added last fall. It'll be fun to watch.

1 comment:

MulchMaid said...

That looks like such a nice space shaping up there. I'm with you about maintenance services although your crew sounds less extreme than the one I'm familiar with. As a member of the Friends group, I'm loosely in charge of the grounds of an historic home in my neighborhood, but the house is owned by the city of Portland and their crew has a way of ripping through when I least expect it. Flat-top bushes, anyone?