How is that white garden doing?

I started a white garden in a less than perfect spot: under a massive black walnut tree, and built on top of a thick layer of added sand put there years ago to fill in a dip. This means it is extremely well-drained–i.e. dry as all get out. Even daylilies struggle there if I don’t pay attention. This year we had so much rain so frequently that I didn’t have to water. But normally I would need to mulch and keep adding composted manure to help preserve moisture. Here’s how it’s looking these days:

the view from the back yard. You can see the black walnut looming over the bed, and the smaller maple tree also.

Here is a closer view from the same direction. The back half of the bed is shaded much of the day. Now a cimicifuga and a white phlox are blooming there, and in the sunny front half garlic chives and white echinachea and a few last white day lilies.

this is the garden from the southwestern direction. I planted a few white or white-ish annuals: flowering tobacco, annual sage, and small bedding dahlias. At the edge of the garden there’s a white spirea. The two painted metal ducks greet people. I bought a dark-leaved eupatorium that supposedly blooms white and it looks good but hasn’t budded yet. 

I recently straightened this path edge and added more manure. Next year I can plant some drought-tolerant white annuals there.

I planted some from this patch of  gooseneck loosestrife in the white garden and I’m confident they will spread. I also planted some woodland anemonies and a few more hostas. Hopefully these will all thrive and fill in the bed. It still looks a little sparse and doesn’t have a coherent pleasing shape. 

woodland anemone–these are also amazing spreaders. 

When David was mowing the other day he saw two foot-long garter snakes, and I have seen a few as well. We have plenty of chipmunks and red squirrels too. Skunks and raccoons make their rounds at night. We see the little holes all over the gardens where they’ve nosed around for bugs and worms. Hummingbird moths and hosts of other insects fill the garden these days. The bees especially love the tall lanceleaf rudbeckia and the hydrangea.

Later on the goldfinches will go after these rudbeckia seedheads. Well, I’d better get ready for my next class. More later! Next post  I will focus on my efforts to grow dahlias.

honeybee leaving a dahlia blossom