Our Missouri Garden

I didn't expect them to grow this much the first year, and blooming pretty good already, but I have been giving them quite a bit of alfalfa tea, that stuff really works.

We had a distinct line between our front yard and a wooded area on the West side of our property that was just begging for some kind of accent planting.  I decided we should put a split rail fence there and plant climbing roses on it.  Initially I could not decide whether to plant the whole fence in the same kind of rose or several different kinds, but eventually decided to go with the climbing rose Quadra, which was developed in Canada and is very cold hardy. 

The fence was put in first, and then a plum tree was planted to the right of the fence line.  

Ever since I saw the Black Lace Elderberry on the internet, I have lusted for one.  I found one at a nursery in Lebanon, and snatched it up.  Not totally sure where I am going to plant it yet, but you know how that goes, with 5 acres I am sure I will find a place! 

And this is a start!  In South Louisiana, I couldn't grow roses because our property had so so many trees, that there was no place in our small yard with enough sun to grow roses.  I always wanted them, but could not have them.  Growing up, my mother had lots of roses all around our property, I can remember some of them growing on our back fence getting really big, and my mom would go out and cut big bunches of roses and wrap them up in newspaper and deliver them to the neighbors to have fresh flowers in their house. 

Well, this is my first rose here, a David Austin English Rose called, appropriately, Mary Rose.  It is planted just as you drive in the driveway.  Hope it does well there. 

We bought this online from Sam's, as it really is a beautiful Pergola and you cannot tell it is aluminum and not wood.  It is awesome, and it arrived in the box today.  I also have included a photo from Sam's website of what it is supposed to look like.

This will be the second garden planted in our new home.  The soil here is really poor, so initially we had the dirt that was brought in to spread on the lawn put inside the front border area, but it is nothing but black clay, so we had to dig it out, and are adding coffee compost, peat moss and alfalfa pellets and tilling them into the area.  As a backbone for the bed, I am putting boxwoods in large containers in the back of the bed and then planted around them will be hostas, huechera, bleeding hearts, begonias, and coleus.  This bed faces North-Northwest so it only gets morning sun.  Primarily shade plants will be put into this bed. You can follow the progression of the front border in the galleries here. 

We started cleaning up the wooded area on the east side of our driveway.  This is mostly shady due to the trees, so I plan to clean it up and plant woodland/shade plants over there.  You can follow the progress of this garden in the galleries here.

We had to install a French Drain in our front yard as we were having problems with drainage that ran from the street in the front toward the back of the yard.  It was cutting its own ditch where it ran, so we put this French Drain in to help alleviate that problem.

I got these bearded iris rhizomes on a co-op at Dave's Garden.  Could never grow bearded iris in South Louisiana, so am excited to try them here.  I planted them around the big rock we left in the front yard by the driveway.  I planted them in November, and now little green leaves are poking their heads up, yea!!