A promise yet to be fulfilled [02/26]

I’m Nathan Langley and this is ‘A promise yet to be fulfilled’, a seasonal weekly newsletter on my trial garden developments at home in Sudbury, Ontario!

July — finally! With the rush of another June over, I can return to my gardens and planting new perennials.

Most of my spare time the past few weeks has been focused on my library garden. The weather has been abnormally wet for June, which made the soil a lot easier to turn over than I was expecting. I still have a small patch to go, but most of the space has been cleaned up and the horsetail / perennial grass has been removed. Or, at least, as much of it has been removed as I could reasonably get to (some always escapes). That’s ok! I will get them when they pop up again.

Here is what I added to the library:

Achillea ‘New Vintage Red’ (‘New Vintage Red’ Yarrow)
Amsonia hubrichtii (Arkansas Blue Star)
Calamagrostis brachytricha (Autumn Feather Reed Grass)
Eryngium yuccifolium (Rattlesnake Master)
Nepeta faassenii ‘Whispurr Pink’ (‘Whispurr Pink’ Catmint)
Salvia nemorosa ‘Bumbleberry’ (‘Bumbleberry’ Meadow Sage)
Verbena stricta (Hoary Vervain)

I have a shipment of perennials I am expecting to arrive next week. Once I have that material, I will be adding more cultivars of Achillea, Nepeta, and Salvia to what is planted currently.

Otherwise, I made a tactical addition to the garden bed next to the house entrance. The Phlox divaricata ‘Blue Moon’ (‘Blue Moon’ Woodland Phlox) was a wonderful success. Every pollinator imaginable visited while it was flowering, including numerous hummingbird moths!

But as the Phlox finished its show for the year, I felt the peony might be a little lonely being the only plant flowering while the Echinacea and Aster get ready for their display. I had some lovely Astilbe chinensis ‘Vision in Red’ (‘Vision in Red’ False Spirea) that I hadn’t used in a design yet, and thought it would be a nice bridge to the warmer colours of the Echinacea yet to flower.

Worst case, the Astilbe will act as a backup if the peony flowers are struck down too quickly in future years by wet weather. This garden is part shade, so the Echinacea will likely be a bit behind their relatives that are growing in full sun.

Next week is more humidity and heat, so I am not sure how much work other than basic maintenance I will get done. It might be a good excuse to get the measuring tape out, however, and start sketching ideas for the next area I would like to work on.