Penstemon Newberry (2) for front yard, and a new glaucous Penstemon also for the front….the old one died off in Mole Hill in the back, so I won’t be putting any new plants there for a while.
Moles and Vols: Mole Hill, by the way, is the epicenter of what became of an early backyard project, the “ecolawn”. Don’t do it, don’t let anyone talk you into that nonsense. It’s a weed trap, and you end up wanting to get rid of it which is then challenging. Ours spanned the short axis of the backyard, and was a crescent shaped space. We killed it by covering the whole thing with black plastic weighted down with logs and rocks all summer. It killed everything and all the roots, “D-E-D dead”. And then we planted some perennials and ground covers, shrubs and bulbs. The moles were quite happy with the lack of plant roots to restrict them, and they were kind of relentless, constantly upheaving throughout recent plantings. To the point that I moved a bunch of them out from the worst area and just stuck rocks in an arc to define Mole Hill. I even wanted to get a plant sign that said”Mole Hill”. Gradually, seeds and adjacent encroachment covered it without more mole trauma. They’re less of a nuisance now, except that their tunnels provide habitat for voles, which now ravage the plants there. But the voles do some digging themselves. Almost all of the Harvest Brodiaea bulb “clumps” have been eaten. I’ve found holes in the ground where a couple of established plants were supposed to be, a big Fawn lily and an anemone plant, and they’ve now eaten DOZENS of Brodiaea plants. So I’m avoiding any new or valuable plants there for a while, too. Thus the front yard garden establishment and rock garden.
Not my photo, but the NW native is newberri, the California native is Sonomensis, which has red flowers instead of pink:
Two Castilleja Miniata, or red Indian paintbrush, for the front yard/ rock garden, those would be our first if they survived…prior seedlings from Shi-Shi beach seeds made it (3) but didn’t survive their outplanting. Also not my photo, since we don’t have one:
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Another try at Purple Coneflower / Rudbeckia Occidentalis, maybe I can find a better spot, it doesn’t seem to do well with moles:
Ones we already have:
Two new Lewisia Tweedii and one new Lewisia Cotyledon for the front rock garden. One new Boykinia for some partial shade area in the front, after our hired landscaping projects are done, we have two in the back.
I planted one new Cornus Canadensis/Trailiing Dogwood, or whatever it’s called now, in the front yard shady area, next to a Maidenhair fan, Pig-a-back plant and trillium Chloropetalum seeds- a little shade plant medley. There are already some fawn lillies, shooting stars, brodiaea, and some background Penstemon there, so that should help round it out, and of course the Starflower, which is now throughout the front yard, more limited in the sunny back. It seems to avoid direct sun, which keeps it from being just everywhere!
One new 1 1/2 foot Vaccinium Membranosum or Black Huckleberry for the back yard deck/patio area (we want to eventually have healthy huckleberries there of several types), maybe where the Garrya bush was taken out last year. That evergreen bush got so big and bushy that it shaded out most everything around it, and they’re now starting to recover. I just cleaned out all the non native sedum and baby’s tears from that area and along the adjacent lower 4-5 steps as well, mulched it and will replant other stuff soon, when the pending landscaping stuff is done. New plating opportunities! Will be vigilant for non native plant regrowth, whereas when the whole yard was the project, I really couldn’t keep track of it, and the big Garrya plant distracted.
ellensgarden.us 