Got my order from Lazy S'S Farm Nursery and planted most of it!

Sonja Behnke Festerling (Albert's, the founder's, daughter) used to talk about her "cardboard garden" (pots in beer boxes) referencing the result of too much buying and too little planting. Jim Dronenberg has, in my experience the most extensive "container ranch" that I have ever seen, and it's full of wonderful plants! About five years ago I resolved not to go down that road again. I've done fairly well at it. If I put something in where I know it really can't stay forever I console myself with the thought that I will reconsider a site and move it. It's interesting how we can tell ourselves lies we know are lies and accept them anyway. Still, in my garden of limited watering, they are much safer in the ground than on the baking deck. The older I get the more good habits I seem to develop????

I planted most of these plants today. The Phlomis, Jerusalem Sage, is a wonderful shrubby mint with fuzzy grey foliage and cheerful yellow flowers. I had it for many many years and one spring it just turned black. I'm putting this one in the same spot under the (considerably taller at 15') Yucca rostrata. Hedychium greenii, a root-hardy ? ginger with wonderful red leaves will go beside the front stairs in back next to Hedychium coronarium, the Butterfly Ginger. Gladiolus 'Carolina Primrose' goes in front by Thuja Rhinegold; the buttery yellow will be nice with the golds and yellows of Rhinegold.....

Rubus odoratus....nice, easy, fragrant, large flowered, ~shade tolerant , suckering.....I could go on and on.

It is a nice shrub though. Definitely informal, there is a place for it in woodland clearings. And I forgot to mention that it's thornless. There is no scale in the picture,but the flowers are large, 2" or so across. And disease free.

This plant is in Fern Valley; many of its siblings were sacrificed to the trail renovation project. The greater part of the colony was repeatedly, several hundred times?, driven over by a Bobcat moving soil, gravel, or whatnot. We put down a thick layer of wood chips and particle-board, but only a couple plants in the area that was the temporary roadway survived. I'm not worried. Adjacent plants are already moving into the devastated area. I expect that by the end of next summer we ought to have the planting back in its entirety.