Oh, the best laid plans [View all]
The new house had a nice level small front yard, so I decided a cottage garden was just the thing. Very British. Casual, unstudied elegance. Low maintenance.
So I had a picket fence and an arbor installed and got to work. I decided to limit flower colors to white, blue, yellow, and pink. After the garden was established, I told myself, I would have nothing to do but pull the occasional weed and sit back and admire my perfectly coordinated cottage garden.
Hah!
As it turns out, unstudied elegance is a lot of work and I’m spending many sweaty hours out there planting, weeding, mulching, and replanting. Did you know many classic English cottage garden flowers expire in hot, humid American climates? Yeah, don’t even think of delphiniums unless you happen to live in the Pacific Northwest. And I was definitely noticing this morning that my carefully planned color scheme has gone to hell. Tomato pink yarrow is flanked by Barbie pink portulaca. That pale peach rose is distinctly bright orange. The lemon yellow coreopsis is more taxicab yellow. Those phlox described as blue are actually magenta. The supposedly pink State Fair zinnias bloomed bright red. At least I have a riot of color.
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