Garden Design Update: Yard Becomes A Garden

Clematis 'Rooguchi'

Over in Ploppers' Field, another small-flowered clematis, Clematis 'Rooguchi' is blooming. It doesn't have as many blooms right now as Clematis 'Pagoda' but it has a charm of its own, regardless.

I think I'll keep it and maybe get some more small-flowered, bell-shaped clematis because I like them. I like them a lot. I have two more in pots on the patio that I need to plant sometime soon.

I like them so much that the other night, I had three more small-flowered clematis in my online shopping cart, but I held off clicking the "submit" button just to prove to myself that I could show some restraint when it comes to plants.

Plus the ones in my cart weren't the ones I really want.

The ones I really want are sold out, so I signed up to get an email when they are available again.

I also like Bletilla sp., hardy ground orchids, these days.

I'm still thinking about ordering some more of these.

In other garden news, and this is the part that many people like the best, I've decided to show before and after pictures of Woodland Follies/August Dream Garden because the transformation is remarkable, even though the plantings are fairly new.

As the Hort-enabler replied when I sent her a picture showing a new bird bath in the garden, "You would never know it was the same yard."

That's exactly what I had hoped for when I hired a garden designer two winters ago.

What was once a yard is now a garden. And I could not have done it without the garden designer. I'm just not wired for "garden design". I'm wired for plants, for gardening, for digging, for growing vegetables, for coveting small-flowered clematis and hardy ground orchids, for buying tiny, cute plants for fairy gardens, for mowing, for collecting hoes, for having conversations with Dr. Hortfreud.

Here's a before picture, looking from the patio out to a few trees planted in the yard.

For those of you who missed it, I chronicled the patio transformation last summer.

This evening, I took this picture from roughly that same spot.

Sorry I didn't have sense enough to move the garden hose out of the picture.

I hope you can see that I'm no longer looking out at a yard with a few trees planted in it.

I hope you can see that there is a garden there, with a path running through it.

It's quickly become one of my favorite spots in the garden.

 And look at all the room for plants!