Garden Makeover Part II

Here's the plan for my newly spacious front bed: I'm going to take a bunch of my planters and pots and sneak them into the bare spots I've made. Devious!

I plant three huge Rex begonias right into the bed, and move two large mixed planters of geraniums and Abutilon and fuchsia into the bare areas.  Instant color where there was only bare soil. They won't live through the winter, but that's OK. They'll color it up and act as placeholders until frost. It's cheating, sort of, but it's good cheating.

Hoo-wee does that ever look better.

It's OK with me if it looks kind of like a garden center tag sale. At least it's interesting and not full of deadheads and crap I don't want.

I put some tropicals I don't intend to bring into the greenhouse in the spaces where the lilies of the valley grew. It's kind of a crazy mix, but it sure beats a mess.

 With a bunch of the superfluous pots cleared away and planted out, the front entry looks neater and more inviting now.

Achimenes "Pink Nighty" is stealing the show, with shocking pink blossoms popping everywhere.

 

I've been propagating that plant like mad, so I can have some to give away this winter. 

Achimenes, which is a gesneriad (African violet/gloxinia/sinningia relative) has a charming habit of going dormant in fall, dying back, and leaving little green pinecone-like tubers in the soil. You keep those in a Ziploc bag at room temperature, and plant five of them to an 8" pot come spring.  

From practically nothing you get this amaaaazing compact but trailing, bushy plant that blooms and blooms and blooms.

And then when it dies back in fall, you store it over the winter in a Ziploc bag full of green pinecone thingies. Takes no space at all, but you have all the genetic material you need to start fresh in spring.

It's truly amazing. They let you know when they're ready to grow by putting out a little red shoot!

I'm kinda nuts about a new Rex begonia called Jurassic "Watermelon." I'd like to think T-rex had this color and pattern. 

Hibiscus "The Path" has just gone nuts this summer. She got a bigger pot and lots of plant food and manure. She liked that!

Heck, she's as tall as I am now. I'm already planning what not to bring into the greenhouse, on her behalf. Sorry, giant scraggly Rosemary. You've just been voted out of the Groanhouse.

You too, three oversized jasmines. Too much foliage and spread. We're cutting back to one jasmine.

In late summer, the sun's intensity has dropped enough that I can bring my bonsai Japanese maples out of the shade and display them on the front stoop. I love to watch them color up come fall.

When I was finally done with my garden/front porch makeover, I mowed the lawn. 

Right before I took this picture, Mr. Baker was lying, frogspraddled, right across the path of the mower. This is what he does when I mow. He glares balefully at me and moves at the very last second. Then lies down again where I will have to come through on the next pass. It's his way of bringing himself to my notice as I mow and sing and talk to myself.

So there you go.  A day well spent, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I like working hard, especially when the results are so easy to see. Maybe it's time for a late summer garden makeover at your house! 

Thanks to the tuberoses in the foreground, this view smells even better than it looks. I like to think of our meadow as the world's largest flowerbed.