Need planting ideas and pictures

I just got a dwarf weeping pussy willow and have a planting bed ready for it. I need ideas for what to plant there around it. The bed is pie wedge shaped with 2 straight sides where driveway and sidewalk meet, and 1 curved side.

do you have a pic of it Peggy how big is it ??
Gloria

shade or sun?

Here ya go. The thin black line is where the bed will be when I've finished digging. It's a 6-7 foot pie wedge shape. Gets sun from the south, west and north, all with woods interference. But there's really no shade.

guess if it was me I'd plant day lilys to start with
Gloria

What a great idea!!!! I LOVE daylilies, and we have clumps of them everywhere. :-)
Thanks!
What about rug jumipewr? Would the sunny spot be bad for it?

just me again but I think that would get to be to much
Gloria

Yeah, I tried to put two pics together to show me the result and it did look like too much.

Well I have the daylilies that I can put there for now, and then Just use mulch in the empty spots until I've lived with the bed for awhile.

Just had an idea. How would it look with a low growing lamb's ears as a border and lavendar ? Could I mix those with daylilies?

YES thats what i think of lambs ear!!!
i dont like it-spreads to much here

This message was edited Apr 19, 2009 10:22 PM

That bad,huh, NM???? LOL!

Now I love lamb's ear as a border plant. I like the cultiver Helen von something or other. It doesn't bloom and has bigger ears. Lamb's ear wills spead but it is very easy to pull out and there are usually takers for the free plants. I like it's grey color and it does blend in nice with lavender.

I've never been able to get it to spread here. LOL! I have I think 2 of the wild tall ones, and they've never multiplied.

Pictures of Lamb's Ear 'Helen Von Stein' (Stachys byzantina)


http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/75455/


To make a border you need quite a few plants. To save money, I ordered seeds for this variety and found it easy to grow from seed. Unless you know someone who has some they will share with you it is a good option for acquiring multiples to make a drift or border planting.

you can come dig all mine out! :)

Huh. The Lamb's Ear seems to vary quite a bit in leaf color. I almost think I want something gray-er, silvery.

I'm going to Hidden Grove sometime this week just on a "hunting, not buying" and advice-begging expedition. I know I could go with herbs there, as so many are grey. Along with lavendar I already have catnip, a tarragon which is gray, and some very invasive wormwood. I won't put catnip there because the cats would decimate it.

And now I need to find landscaping/design info. Like, do I need to go with the power of three, both in color and plant type? And what percent of the bed should be open space, mulch only?

I don't think the weeping PW lends itself to my typical Cottage flower garden look. Or would it? Could I surround it with a sort of wildflower bed? I WISH I could find pics!

If you want real light grey and low consider Snow in Summer. I have that as a border plant alongside my lavendar. It's a raised bed and it drapes down over the stones. It's a spreader and blooms in June with little white flowers. Here is a picture.

http://www.mobot.org/GARDENINGHELP/PLANTFINDER/Plant.asp?Code=H590

I have lots of four o clock seeds if you'd like some - yellow. Dmail me if you want them. Very hardy plant and will come back every year from seeds.

Another idea is artemesia. You can see a pic at this link

http://www.bluestoneperennials.com/b/bp/ARDCS.html

One more idea is the annual dusty miller. It's so grey it's almost white and I find if I don't pull it out in the fall it will overwinter and be there the next year..........especially if you mulch around it with some leaves.

Great ideas! I wasn't considering Dusty Miller because it's not a perennial, but - hey - it'd be fun to see if it did make it through the winter!

Dusty miller would be a good edge plant too.

I like the Artemisia too. Mine DID spread underground and I can't get rid of it. But it says that one doesn't.

This message was edited Apr 22, 2009 8:15 PM

OK, It's planted and the bed prepared, except for some good soil I'll add.

I'm going to study it for a few days and hopefully it will tell me what kind of roommates it wants. :-)

I might use one of those plastic flexible edges (black) to define it and keep grass out.



This message was edited Apr 22, 2009 8:12 PM

This message was edited Apr 22, 2009 8:14 PM

This message was edited Apr 22, 2009 8:14 PM

PJ,

If you want to make a road trip to Hudsonville in the next two days, I have a very thick book chuck full of ideas and some other resources. I would mail it to you but its HUGE.

Send me a map.