I’ve been reluctant to take any photos of the rocky front garden bed because, well, I expected it to look much better by now. My little village planted a series of water-filtering median strips after a construction project last summer, and those beds look fabulous, as if they’ve been there forever. Maybe I should give my six readers a photo of them instead. And maybe I will.

But for now, this is my work-in-progress. It remains an ongoing surprise/learning experience. The things I’ve planted here expecting great things have been big disappointments—I’m thinking daylilies and hostas, about which the best I can say is: They aren’t dead yet. I’m perplexed by the yarrow as well; I planted a couple of those smack in the middle of the bed, at its highest point, since these plants can get pretty tall. They have formed a dense clump that looks vigorous and healthy—but they’ve remained much, much shorter than their counterparts elsewhere, which are in the shade and flop over helplessly after they bloom. These yarrows, in a perfect spot for their kind—hot and dry—have yet to produce a single flower. What the?

But since I’m a glass-half-full kind of girl, I’m happy with the cosmos, which are doing a great job of filling in the empty spaces in the back of the bed. Even better, they haven’t cost me a dime since I bought them two or three years ago; they just keep reseeding themselves.

Mr. TrowelTART noted the other day that rain has been sparse lately, and suggested this bed might need a good dousing. “Are you kidding me?” I said, incredulous. He seemed surprised by the vehemence of my response and reasonably suggested that our teenage boys could do it. “Forget it,” I said. This is a survival-of-the-fittest garden. I have enough trouble keeping my potted plants alive; my goal is to do nothing with this bed except weed it — and continue the search for plants that will tolerate that.

Posted on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 at 1:08 pm. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.