Garden Guru's Visit

My MIL was here, as I said, and we did lots of fun things. I'm sure you don't want the whole art and garden tour of Southeastern Pennsylvania,  but I will say that on Thursday, when I had finally finished the second baby sampler (without taking a photo) the dude and his mum brought it to the Strawberry Sampler on their way to Longwood Gardens. While there, she bought a project to work on. She was really enamored of the shop. (She knits, but cross stitches occasionally.)

Mothers' Garden before

About halfway through her visit I got sick with a horrible summer cold. But I rallied on Saturday to clean up the Mothers' Garden--that's what I call the side garden because our mothers helped us dig and plant it. The grass and weeds had taken over, and it's always the last garden I get to, so we three focused our efforts on taking it back.

We had to move four plants--a lacecap hydrangea planted too close to another hydrangea, lirope that had gotten buried under that same hydrangea, a tiny hosta that had been overshadowed by the one you can see here, and a maidenhair fern that was being overshadowed by that pretty rhododendron. I pounded in some edging and we mulched. It looks so much better!

I've always talked about connecting this garden and the front garden. I'm sure I'm confusing some of my British readers, so when I talk about a garden think "border" and when I talk about the yard, think "garden." Okay, onwards. The two planting areas needed connecting, but the bit that was unplanted was like a desert, a desert we had thrown all the rocks we had dug up from our yard, which was like a million. So we decided a rock garden.

We planted with fire spinner delosperma, sempervivum (two varieties), leucanthemum (dwarf), scabiosa knautia macedonica "Thunder and Lightning." I'm probably confusing some of you with the Latin names, but since my MIL is Scottish and gardens in England, we have to speak Latin to understand each other.

That geranium sanguineum was already there. I had bought it from the library plant sale. I planted it late and forgot about it for two years. Three years ago, my MIL was helping me weed, and she found it. It's spread a little since then.

All this work just about did me in, though. Sunday was horrible with racking coughs and more snot than you knew was in a human being. The dude kept asking me when I thought I should go to the doctor. In the end, it was Memorial Day and seeing someone was going to be more trouble, by Tuesday I was much better, although I still cough impressively if you make me laugh.