faulker042

Dear readers, My home and gardens, featured in this blog, are now in the hands of a wonderful family with children and dogs. The years spent here with my husband were incredible. We loved our neighborhood, our home and the gardens. After "The Musician" passed away from brain cancer, it was time for me to move on. I spent a year here without him and it was bittersweet. I'm currently renovating a much smaller house, built in 1939.  It's a project! There are still months to go to completion and I'll have new garden opportunities on the established half acre lot. Thank you for reading my blog. I'll keep it alive for reference purposes on the many plants that I grew over the years. Thank you, garden bloggers. I've met many of you in person and consider many others as friends as we still engage in other social media. Here are a few last photos of the garden in 2015. The cottage garden Nigella, a favorite grown from seed The deer resistant garden Words and ph...

Deer damage. February 2014 Well, not the entire yucca. Not yet—and there's no sign of spring around here. It's been a cold winter and food is scarce, so hungry deer seek out plants that aren't on the regular menu. The deer ignore the yucca from spring through fall. This is not the first winter when the yucca was ripped up, so I wasn't surprised. I should have put a cage around it, but I didn't. While the yucca is ragged, it will recover and bloom again this summer. The victim here is yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' but the deer will nibble the tips on any variety of yucca. For photos of this particular yucca in full glory, refer to my past post " Rays of Sun, Leaves of Yellow ." I love this yucca and am keeping it in the deer resistant garden. Not only is it an easy-keeper (ignore it except to protect it from deer in winter), it's a great evergreen companion to shrubs, annuals and perennials in my zone 7b garden. So, gardeners beware—protect y...

Eryngium yuccifolium (aka 'Rattlesnake Master'). Looking downhill in the deer resistant meadow garden. July 15, 2013 The first time I saw Rattlesnake Master was at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C.  I saw it again in The Battery Gardens in New York City and was hooked on the architectural form of this native wildflower. This is now the third growing season and my plants have matured into tall, sturdy stalks supporting branches tipped by white globes. I grow mine in a meadow mix of flowers (daisies, coneflowers, bee balm, etc.). But I think the white globes would be spectacular against a solid green or burgundy foliage background or among grasses. The bluish rosette foliage at the base of Rattlesnake Master resembles yucca leaves, but don't use the leaves to fight off rattlesnakes. The eyebrow-raising common name for Eryngium yuccifolium originated from the Native American tea, brewed from the roots, used as an antidote for rattlesnake bites. The one-inch globes a...

Monarda 'Blue Stocking' blooms in late June in zone 7b. With so many varieties of monarda (bee balm) available, it sometimes comes down to a color choice. I have three favorites in my garden and monarda 'Blue Stocking' is easy to incorporate into multiple color schemes. Growing in my garden since 2008, I've used this bee balm with purple coneflowers, agastache, baptisia and spirea. This summer, I've paired it with bright gold rudbeckia (susans) in the deer resistant meadow garden. Monarda 'Blue Stocking' zones 4-8 30" high full-part sun deer and rabbit resistant* This combination is viewed uphill and downhill. I planted the rudbeckia uphill as it is slightly taller than the bee balm (and the bee balm was already in place). These rudbeckia were grown from seeds and allowed to self-sow, so I can't give you a specific named variety—choose your favorite. I thin out the susans, and given the ample rainfall this year, I pulled enough to fill a few...

Container hosta nestled between nepeta and Japanese painted ferns, growing beneath a tree-form Encore® Azalea. May 2013 Gloomy. Misty. Chilly. Where do I live? Not Seattle. North Carolina is having a cool spring. To find a bright side to this weather, I walked in the garden with the camera. Colors show true in photos when the skies are overcast. On a typical, bright sunny morning in my south-facing garden, it is difficult to catch the true bloom colors as the rays of the sun cast a yellow-orange glow. I compared the two conditions in this photo post in 2009 . So, I'll stop complaining about wearing a raincoat outside and running the heat inside and share today's garden highlights in the lowlight. Perennial blue flax, grown from seeds originally sown in 2009, continues to return or self-sow. Flax is a favorite and I have two varieties that, when transplanted early in spring, are welcome fillers in bare spots. Otherwise, I let it go where it sows as the slender foliage takes up l...

It's not a secret. I'm not embarrassed by it. I have an orange section in the deer resistant garden—seldom mentioned on the blog because it's so darn difficult to photograph the plantings together as one unified design. When one bloom looks great, another is declining. Orientation: To the left of the plants in the photo below, is the red and white garden seen here . The yellow St John's Wort divides the two color themed gardens. Not because I planned it that way, but because I didn't want to move this glorious shrub. Bees literally bathe in the pollen of the St John's blooms. It self-sows minimally and I'm always scouting for seedlings to use in other sections of the deer resistant garden. The orange garden is on the east side of the house, receiving full sun until very late in the evening during the summer. This garden is watered only when I'm establishing new plants. All plants are drought tolerant. The plants are shown in order of bloom. The orange ga...

Deer resistant garden. May 2012. I've been gardening with my deer friends since September 2005 when we built our home. Deer resistance varies according to the availability of food in the wild and the population of both the deer and humans (new construction removes habitat).  My definition of deer resistance is this: If the deer nibble the plants, but the plants bounce back for my enjoyment in the bloom season, the plant passes the test. See that pretty Yucca 'Color Guard' in the photo above? The deer nip the tips in January and February when food is scarce. But the leaves recover and the plant blooms on schedule in May. That's what I mean by deer resistant, even though the yucca looks a bit scruffy as I write this post on a cold January morning. In the photo below, note the mounded Spirea 'Neon Flash' blooming in shades of pink. Once in awhile, the deer will pick a bloom, but overall, I don't miss a few flowers during peak bloom season. The spirea blooms for...

Coreopsis 'Star Cluster' in bloom with companions Eucomis 'Sparkling Burgundy' (foliage left)  echinacea (multiple varieties back)  and purple phlox 'Nicky'. Three plants of Coreopsis 'Star Cluster' PPAF were added to my cottage garden in 2011. I was so impressed by the performance and beauty of this coreopsis, that I purchased five more plants this spring. This 2010 introduction in the Big Bang ™ series is from Darrell Probst. For several years, I've happily grown his taller Coreopsis 'Red Shift' in the deer resistant meadow garden. 'Star Cluster' is shorter at 18-14 inches high and wide, making it more suitable for the scale of my cottage garden. A few months ago, Darrell sent me an email about my experience with the color of the 'Star Cluster' here in the southeast. As expected, the coreopsis begins to bloom a creamy white and the deep purple eye spreads from the center during the cooler weather in the fall. Deadheading isn...

The last rays of the sun shine on the willow at the end of lower path. There is order to the path edging plants, but there are"wild" flower pairings mixed in the rest of the deer resistant meadow garden. 1. Around 8:00 pm on a June evening in the deer resistant meadow garden. When the summer sun heats up and the temperatures rise, the best time to walk through the garden is late evening.  The light is soft and the true colors are easier to capture with the camera. 1. The purple spikes of meadow blazing star ( liatris ligulistylis ) are backlit by gold/yellow black-eyed susans ( rudbeckia hirta). White shasta daisies ( leucanthemum x superbum 'Alaska') truly shine in the low light of the fading sun. Wisps of feather grass ( stipa ) provide a backdrop for the tufted blooms of deep raspberry bee balm ( monarda 'Raspberry Wine'). 2. Different views provide different combinations in the mix of meadow flowers in the deer resistant gadren. Shasta daisies and susans...

Left of house is west and driveway with entry gravel garden.  Right is east with the red/white and orange/yellow flowers. Front is south-facing with 2 acres of open meadow grass. There is no garden in the back (north) as our woods (2.5 acres) come up to the back deck. Paved driveway (west) ends in the gravel entry garden. The gravel entry garden is the first thing a visitor sees when arriving. There is sufficient space for a car to park in front of the bench. In a few years, the dwarf Burford 'nana' hollies will create a hedge to separate the gravel garden from our concrete parking area for our garage. A large oakleaf holly and a crepe myrtle flank the bench area. A row of rosemary lines the opposite side of the gravel parking space.  The gravel entry garden along the front of the garage wall. From the gravel parking area, a hedge of hollies line the garage wall. The arched bridge crosses the dry stream to the meadow grass. A crepe myrtle on the lower right is underplant...