planning, part 3

I liked the idea of elegrant strips of flowering beds, but after the first year, I ended up widening everything. The effect or concept is the same, but the proportions are much more satisfactory to the eye.

But even with this somewhat formal garden area (although it is not planted formally), I still wanted the lines to go down to the street. And when I looked from the house, I wanted my eye to follow to something that was not just the street. I wanted a framed view.

So a few more feet toward the street, I started curved beds that form sort of a u-shape, the with the bottom of the u being just a few feet from the street. I threw in a circular bed of white hydrangea on the shady side of the u, in an area between the u and the perennial strip beds.

Unlike the straight lines of the beds closer to the house, these are unevenly shaped, making the end more natural looking, even as it is planted with daylilies, black-eyed susans, cranesbill (perennial geraniums), columbine, poppies, summer phlox, a beauty berry, roses, and peonies.

It still needs something at the end, something that is not too precious, i.e., phony and out of place with a stone ranch. I think a very simple birdbath or a slab of cut and rough stone as a bench would work. At one point, I wanted to do climbing roses on a trestle, and that may still work, too.