Perennial Optimism

 Every year I lose a few perennials, and last year I did away with a whole bunch of Day Lilies and a few Hosta because I was tired of fighting the deer for them.  Most of this happens in our big Dry Creek Bed.  This area is pretty challenging to plant because it is both a hot, dry area and a wet area, depending on the season.   Below is an example of one of the planting spots vacated last year by a Day Lily.  The Day Lilies and grasses push a pretty sizeable root ball up from grade which seems to help them deal with the soggy season.

Because when it rains, some of these holes can really fill up with water!

When I first planted this area, I started with dependable plants like Decorative Grasses, Day Lilies and Hosta. Over the years I have also tried and failed to add some color with Blanket Flowers, Salvia, several varieties of Echinacea and newer Rudbeckias.  I tried some things that don't do well for me anywhere in my garden:  Candy Tuft, Sedums, Plumbago, Coreopsis and Caryopteris. I've planted four or five different varieties of Butterfly Bush.  Only one variety of these does well, but I am tired of replacing them every two or three years with volunteers I have collected up and groomed as under studies.  I tried some things that the deer absolutely obliterated like Irises, Asters and Marshmallows.  I still haven't gotten around to some of the brighter things like Phlox.  Some of the planting spots I have replanted three or four times and failed with every new idea.

Instead of going for colorful flowers I have switched to texture and colored foliage which brought me to shrubs.  Some of these have done well and some haven't.  I've discovered a few new to me plants like Amsonia and Penstemon which, so far, seem unstoppable in difficult locations.  When online perennials get discounted towards the end of each spring, I buy the smaller pots at half price, pot them up in larger pots, and grow them up to a retail size before planting them out.  This year, to fill the holes left by the murdered Daylilies, drowned Butterfly Bushes and finicky Echinaceas, I needed a dozen new Perennials and Shrubs.  I chose all new varieties concentrating on plants that look like they belong along a natural creek bed.  When searching through possibilities, I filtered for Deer Resistant and Wet Site Tolerant.

Physostegia Summer Snow (Obedient Plant)

Lobelia Starship Scarlet (Cardinal Flower)

Cimicifuga Black Negligee (Bugbane)

Aronia Berry Scape (Choke Berry)

Clethra Sugartina Crystalina (Summersweet)

I also got a few more Amsonia, Brunnera, Carex grass and Niagara Falls grass because I know those will work here and what I have is still too small to divide at this point.  I topped off the empty holes with fresh soil and got rid of all of the opportunistic weeds that had tried to take over.  Some of these new perennials were already getting root bound in the pots I put them in last month.  I hope this means they will root in fast and take off.

I love having a fresh new perennial in a tidy planting space.  So much promise.

Unless you were to walk through the creek bed, you really wouldn't have noticed those dozen empty holes.  What survives from year to year looks beautiful in June.  Here are a few shots from the last week.

Early Morning Sunshine

The Layered Look

Hosta corner in the dry shade of the Black Maple

Penstemon Onyx And Pearls (Beardtongue)

So now the vegetable garden is in, all of my annuals have been planted, and now all of the new perennials have been placed out in the dry creek bed.  I think I am, at last, done planting for the year.