This sweet little area of the garden has finally blossomed into what I’ve been trying to achieve for years—-a lush mat of groundcovers interspersed with taller, lovely plants that need little to no care but bloom religiously. The creeping plants–ajuga, sweet woodruff and a form of yellow-flowering sedum I’ve yet to identify–have spread beautifully, choking out most weeds (looking at you, garlic mustard) and even tamping down the previously rampant wild strawberries. (I spare a few of those to provide berries for the critters; besides, I just like seeing a red berry pop up amid the greenery.) The real stars here, though, are the coneflowers.

I bought these last year from a nice young man at a farmers market. I’d been reading about a new cultivar, Cheyenne Spirit echinacea, that promised to do the impossible: produce flowers of different colors on the same plant. None of the garden centers I’d visited had it or even knew that the heck I was talking about, but this guy had four of them. Four! When I told him I’d been looking for this cultivar, and why, he assured me that no echinaceas do what I was suggesting. Perhaps I misread the story? Pretty sure I didn’t, nice young man, but you’re the grower. So instead of buying four Cheyenne Spirits, I just picked the four plants that looked healthiest. Well, one happened to be a Cheyenne Spirit, and guess what. Check out the blooms on the second plant from the left. Yup, yellow and purple.

I could kick myself for not buying all four when they were right there for the taking, but hey. These plants are blooming like a house afire. And they ask nothing of me but that I admire them. Which I do. Who needs a watering can anyway?

Posted on Saturday, August 1st, 2015 at 7:54 pm. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.