Transplanting a Perennial Garden {and a bit about Boxwoods!}
As I mentioned in my post about the peonies in bloom, last week we removed the raised planters in our back yard and transplanted the Perennial garden. While I adore the idea of filling the beds on either side of the arbor with swaths of the same bloom, I’m afraid I may have bitten off more landscaping than I can currently chew. I am so embarrassed to even post a photo of what the arbor looks like right now, but I guess it can’t be all pretty all the time around here, can it?
At this point, I’m considering planting either side with grass and tackling this backyard project again next Summer. I am overwhelmed with future projects in our yard. I really want to get behind the stone wall planted with day lilies as soon as possible – it’s a huge area, and a pretty enormous undertaking. Besides, if I push off planting either side of the arbor (until next year) maybe Tauren Poodle will be more mature by that point and won’t insist upon prancing through the flower beds? Ha! Doubt it.
In my ideal world, the boxes would be lined in dwarf boxwood not dissimilar to what Bunny Williams has done at her house. With each season, different flowers (all of the same variety depending on whether it is early or late Spring, early mid or late Summer) would pop up in the middle of the bed, encircled by the boxwood. In the Winter, we’d simply have some green interest in the back yard.
When I presented this idea to the Mr, he said “No. We have too many boxwood in the yard!” In my opinion, there are never too many boxwood. In our yard, boxwood are the jumping off point to create the formal look we’re going for. We have a ton of them on the walk to the mudroom door – why not add more? Doesn’t he realize repetition is a powerful design element? 
I didn’t push the issue with him since there is a boxwood blight working it’s way through the Northeast and I’d hate to kill all those others that we installed late last Summer. (I think I read online somewhere that the dwarf boxwood are not effected. I’d want to confirm that with an expert before I took the idea any further.) It does look pretty amazing to use boxwood en masse like these examples above, don’t you think?
Now, about that NEW Perennial bed. As I mentioned before, we moved all the flowers from the raised beds that were on either side of the arbor in our backyard out into the front yard. We reused everything except one plant which didn’t fare well during the transition. We added dozens of more plants to create more of a color show throughout the Summer months. As I recall, usually August has been mostly white blooms. There will be purple and white cone flowers, blue delphiniums, and gold rudbeckia popping up next, as far as I can guess.
The Holly bushes that were situated on either side of the stone steps from the driveway have continued to deteriorate since we purchased the house. They were planted too high by the previous owners to begin with, not to mention the stone wall heats up in the Summertime and basically cooks them at the root. I love the look and idea of them, but due to their bad condition and the future plans we have for that spot, we had them removed last week as well.
Posted by Amy Beth Cupp Dragoo / Making Your House a Home and Uncategorized
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