It sure has been a hot August. Records have been broken this summer. Mid-nineties this week. At least the days are shorter, the mornings and evenings cooler. The grass has crisped in areas with poor irrigation management.

The fall garden ends up being more about texture than color. I struggle with fall color and have been meaning to put in some Zauschneria for the last few years and for some reason have never gotten around to it. By the time I think of it, the garden centers are out of plants. I need to make a note on my calendar to look for them in the spring.

The nasturtiums struggle to even bloom this year. Even the vegetables are not doing that great. The Russian sage is starting to fade.  The deer eat the garden phlox the minute it blooms.

Sunflowers and false sunflowers continue to bloom. The goldfinches are back as the seeds start to set. A bit of purple globe thistle does better with some extra water.  The remnants of ornamental oregano still attract bees.

Sedum ‘Purple Emperor’ about to bloom amid sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula)

Rabbit brush, one of my favorite fall plants, about to bloom and attract bees galore.

Four years later, Thomas Rainer has written a book with Claudia West Planting in a Post Wild World (highly recommended if you are interested in designed plant communities) and I continue to work on the garden or what I call my Outdoor Plant Lab.

That is the only way I can look at it. Otherwise, I go crazy imagining the insane amount of work keeping quack grass and bindweed at bay. But I am starting this blog. Finally.

Late June 2017. Still no designing. Looking at what needs to be moved, what isn’t working. PHOTO CREDIT: Susan Buffler

An Inheritance
(I wrote this in 2013 and never posted it)

Where to start? My inspiration came from Thomas Rainer’s Grounded Design post, Pleasure Garden.  Thomas is a landscape architect from the Washington D.C. area and until recently had been reticent to talk about his own yard.

I am also trained as a landscape architect (MLA), although I do not make my living at it. I despair that I too am falling into the “non-planning / non-design” mode as the landscape threatens to overwhelm me.

To make matters more complicated, we “inherited” this garden just over three years ago.  Originally designed years ago by well-known local botanist Art Holmgren, the landscape is replete with shrubs never pruned, behemoth junipers, and overly shaded shrubs leaning toward the sun.

Floating island perennial beds are mounded above turf.  Water-wise and non-water wise trees and shrubs are flood irrigated together with the turf in the back yard. Deer prune different plants each year.

But… there are “good bones here”, a former coworker once mentioned.  Did I mention that the property is 0.82 acres?

Surprisingly, most of the plants are fairly drought tolerant.  The former owners; after the botanist and before us, tried to be true to his vision. I am not really sure what that was, but I think it might have been to include plants from different parts of the country in each bed. Hepatica, Jack in the Pulpit, and other under-story forest plants attest to an “East coast” mentality.

Odd onesies are discovered here and there. A Heuchera tucked in a border, a Cupid’s Dart on an inside edge, a Campanula perched on an outside curve and a goldenrod in the wrong irrigation water zone.  A Purple Loostrife with its metal ID tag.

Divide, remove, transplant.

Center bed in backyard Fall 2011 – PHOTO CREDIT: Susan Buffler