A Three Month Old Garden in New Boston

Sonnet and Rocket Snapdragon, Angelonias, Heliopsis, Castor Beans, Salvia “Black and Blue”, old fashioned Balsams, Nicotiana mutabilis.

This is Cottage style planting with an intermingling of colors. Plants are not massed in blocks. I prefer a pointillist effect.

Salvia Mystic Spires, Balsams, petunias Sonnet Pink Snapdragons, “Dondo” ageratum not yet blooming.

Closeups of Balsams. These are easy to grow from seed, and would be a good starter seed for a child to plant. They are an heirloom annual and a form of Impatiens. Let them dry out and they faint into a heap. These self sowed throughout a rock wall in a Nashville garden I cared for.

These next photos are of the dry garden and the hanging garden of volunteer phlox that sprout in the granite wall. The soil here is sand. When I decided to put a garden bed in such inhospitable ground I had the local inhabitants show me the way. There were several large stands of Oenethera biennis, various dry field goldenrods, wild black eyed susans, aster lateriflorums, heath asters, feral daylilies, and the spotted St.John’s wort.

I added Globe thistles, blue agastache, Russian sages, Salvia darcyi, Salvia “Cold Hardy Pink”, Lavender “Phenomenal”, Tropical Butterfly weed, Pink Porterweed, Salvia “Windwalker” and “Indigo Spires”. Also: Kudos agastaches, Artemesia Silver King, Sea Lavender. White perennial scabious, Aster laevis, Aster “Monte Casino”, Aster “Pink Star”, Panicum grass “Cloud Nine”, Sedum “Matrona”,Euphorbia polychroma, Yucca “Gold Sword”, Showy Goldenrod,”Southern Cross” Ironweed, Native orange Butterfly weed, Aretmesia “Silver Mound”. Red, orange and “Fireworks ” gomphrenas, and Verbena bonairiensis. The “Queen Sophia” marigold. Chrysopsis villosa, the prairie golden aster.

And soon to be added- Montauk daisies and Pink Muhly grass. The latter is not hardy here, but will be wintered inside.

When we were at 100 degrees a few days ago, my balsams fell over, the cleomes shed yellow leaves, and misery was everywhere, except in this part of the garden.