The sun was bright, and the shadows were long. I love early morning in the garden.
The English Garden has recovered really well from last winter's damage.
Many of my David Austin roses in the English Garden are flowering, though few of the flowers are picture perfect. That's just how it is in late fall ... doesn't make them any less beautiful to me.
The little baby Noisette roses in the English Garden have settled in and grown a lot since I planted them in August.
Mystery Noisette #1 that lost its tag.
Mystery Noisette #1 that lost its tag.
Mystery Noisette #2, with a faded tag.
Mystery Noisette #2, with a faded tag.
In another part of the garden, 'Belle Vichyssoise' has opened a beautiful spray of fragrant flowers and 'Pink Perpetue' was showing off a perfect flower that looks almost like a camellia.
Today, I worked in the shade garden for most of the day ... hoping to get the area prepped and lot of new plants into the ground. I am calling this garden Hellebore Hill, because it's catchy and it will have mostly Hellebores in it. Before I could plant anything, I had to clear the area of hundreds of fallen black walnuts. I made two trips with the tractor, with the bucket full of nuts, and dumped them in the tree line at the back of our property.
I don't use the tractor a lot, so I don't get to see this view very often.
Once the nuts were gone and the weeds were pulled, it was time to plant. This 8 x 8 foot space is thickly planted, because I want it to fill in and the plants to grow together. It contains mostly free plants, a few bargain plants, and some great specimen plants from my garden club plant exchange last weekend ... thirteen two-year-old seedling Hellebores, two fall-flowering Japanese Anemones, two Black Arums (Arum pictum), one Heuchera villosa, and one Aureomaculata Leopard Plant. It also has ten Colchicums (which are finished for the season) and three clumps of daffodil bulbs.
Even though I was tired after all the prep work, digging all those holes and planting the plants, I continued to work ... putting down a good layer of newspaper on the bare soil and covering it with mulch.
I'm glad I stuck with it and finished this part of the job completely, because it felt so good to step back and see what I had accomplished.
Soon, I hope to continue the progress down this bed, weeding and planting as I can, to connect this new part of the garden to the existing part that contains mostly mature Hellebores and Hostas. If I can do this, it means that I will have fewer plants in pots, more plants in the ground, and an awesome new garden to enjoy ... instead of the weed patch that had been there.