Making Plans

 Throughout the season, and especially towards the end of the season, I begin making notes for next year.  Things I want to do differently.  Things I want to move.  Things I want to add.  The things I want gone get gone right now.  But I have a shopping list started in my mind already and that will keep me occupied through the long, cold winter.  One thing I want to do is add to this end of the riverbed,

Back in April we pulled a row of railroad ties out of here to reuse elsewhere and it changed how I see this edge.  Now that I've walked past it a hundred times in various stages of growth and color, my mind is coming up with a plan.  I have spent two years tweaking the view from the firepit seating area and am very happy with that and now it is time to make some changes here.

I need something on the left between the tall grass and the red daylily.  I want something black to go with the Black Lace Elderberry on the right.  And I want something I don't already have.  Like Penstemon.  Penstemon comes in black foliage.  And it can't be a pink flower.  So black with white. Like Onyx and Pearls.

And then I have a wide open space that needs some yellow or lime.  I will have Black Eyed Susan to put there in the spring.  But that blooms late.  I might want to use an Echinacea instead.  I could divide a daylily but this time of year I am all daylilied out.  I already have a hundred daylilies  Maybe a Coreopsis or an Achillea.  Yup, that will keep me busy researching and imagining for months.

Then to the right of the Black Lace I need another splash of red.

Once again I have red day lilies that could be divided.  But you can have too much grassy texture.

Maybe Monarda instead?

The possibilities are endless