I’m back! And so is the garden

October 21, 2021

After two years of planning and a one-year covid-deferment, I finally made a long-wished-for road trip through the Northeast for leaf-peeping season, segueing into a garden-visiting trip down through the Mid-Atlantic.

My route, not including extensive exploring in the White Mountains and Brandywine Valley

I flew into Maine on the last day of September and returned last Sunday after 18 days on the road and 2,250 miles on my rental car. My husband accompanied me for part of it, my dad for a couple of days, and the rest I soloed. I took about 3,000 photos. It was pretty great!

I came home to a garden refreshed by several inches of rain and cooler temperatures. Everything seems to be blooming. It’s our second spring!

Why did it take me so long to plant ‘Country Girl’ mums, I wonder? I love their blushing pink flowers, although it’s true that cucumber beetles love them too and they get a bit tattered. This bed along the deck has undergone a lot of revisions over the past year, but I’m liking where it is. Three potted ‘Color Guard’ yuccas in galvanized pots anchor the curving bed, backed by Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha) and fringed with ‘Southern Star Blue’ dwarf ruellia (very similar to ‘Katie’ ruellia). Foxtail ferns and ‘Bandana White’ lantana fluff it up a little, and copper spiders (Echeandia texensis) add spires of golden flowers at back left. I’m waiting for a ‘Purple Pillar’ rose of Sharon (far left) to add verticality. The grasshoppers went after it hard this summer, but it’s hanging in there.

A TerraTrellis tuteur and hanging saucer planters from Potted get the eye up off the ground and help fill the gap between the ground plane and the deck, without blocking views from the deck. So do vines climbing sections of cattle panel affixed to the deck skirting.

A dog’s-eye view

The deck is awash in the fragrance of sweet almond verbena (Aloysia virgata), a heavenly scented but frankly kind of ugly giant shrub (upper left). I thought it had died in the February freeze, and my husband hacked out the massive root ball — or so he thought — but it came roaring back and is bigger than ever. So be it. It really wants to live, and after all it smells so good. As it leans toward the big ‘Sapphire Skies’ Yucca rostrata, the yucca leans toward it, reaching for more sun, and creating a kind of tunnel up the side path.

Philippine violet (Barleria cristata) and fall aster (Aster oblongifolius) add purples below, with ‘Traveller’ weeping redbud, ‘Blue Ice’ Arizona cypress, and a chlorotic loropetalum in the background.

I plant our native fall aster (Aster oblongifolius) for the bees and for its gorgeous fall color.

Look for my travel posts to start next week, but before that I’ll be sharing pics of Lucinda Hutson’s festive Day of the Dead garden here in Austin!

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Digging Deeper

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15 responses to “I’m back! And so is the garden”

  1. Kris P says:

    That’s some trip! I look forward to a LOT of future blog posts chronicling your journey.

    I love all the beautiful blues in your fall garden.

    • Pam/Digging says:

      Thanks, Kris. It’s going to be fun reliving my trip through my blog posts. And it was so great to finally see some real fall foliage for a change.

  2. peter schaar says:

    Your garden looks magnificent! Did you see my friend Karl Gercens at Longwood when you were there?

    • Pam/Digging says:

      Not this time, Peter. Sadly he was out of town for a funeral. But I did have the pleasure of meeting him a few years ago on a garden tour here in Austin.

  3. Susan says:

    Love your blog posts and cannot wait to see your posts for your trip. My husband and I are planning a trip across America beginning May 2022 and I have Longwood garden and Chanticleer on my list.
    I live in the Pacific Northwest.

    • Pam/Digging says:

      Sounds like a great trip, Susan. Chanticleer is my all-time favorite public garden. I’ll have pics from that garden again within the next month or so. Look in my header menu under Regional Garden Tours (organized alphabetically by state) for more pics of Chanticleer, plus Longwood and Winterthur as well.

  4. Lisa at Greenbow says:

    I can’t wait to hear more about your trip. It sounds like a fun time.
    I love that tunnel feeling in a garden and if it is fragrant mores the better.

  5. Wow, now THAT is a road trip! I am rather jealous, what a time you must have had. As for your garden… I can’t wait to see it again!

  6. Your garden vignettes just make me smile–lovely color and style. Glad you managed to carry out the long-planned trip.

  7. Astra says:

    I have been biking the Violet Crown trail a lot this year. The stretch just north of the Wildflower Center had amazing wildflowers yesterday, including copious aster. I think the birds must be helping stretch the wildflower zone of bloom.

    • Pam/Digging says:

      Thanks for the heads up. I’m going to be there with an out-of-town visitor on Friday, so I’m glad to hear the fall wildflowers out that way are looking pretty.

  8. […] a very busy month, I’m ready to start sharing about my 18-day, 2,200-mile road trip through the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic earlier this […]