New and Improved Crab Bed

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The crab bed didn't thrill me at all last year.  And less so this Spring.  About all that survived the long winter were the crabapple trees, the 2 Walker's Low catmint, 1 (of 4) English lavenders, 11 (of 11) Golden Jubilee hyssop and 8 (of 8) Apache sunset hyssop.  Add the new (still in a pot) Hakuro Nishiki willow and that was what I had to work with.

I hemmed and hawed for days, then one nice morning I had just HAD it -- and went to work.

I tossed all the dead: 12 Apricot Sprite hyssops, 3 lavenders and ALL of the mums (4? 6?).  I dug up the last lavender and put it in a large pot for the season and transplanted the 8 Apache Sunset hyssop to the arbor bed.

Then I REALLY got to work.  I had known for almost a year that I really wanted the catmints to go to the ENDs of the bed.  So I got the biggest rootballs I could physically wrestle and transplanted them to the ends.  They were a little shocky the rest of the day, but hey - their last name is MINT!  They could take a little shock.

That done, I went into creative overdrive.

I gathered up some of my new seedlings: "Pink Dreams" nepeta, Crazy Daisy shasta, Yvonne's salvia and nearly 20 of last year's 'rescue' geraniums. I grabbed 4 small clumps of Autumn Joy sedums from the front of the house.  Then, while I was in the arbor bed, I dug up all the (nearly-smothered by day lilies) dwarf bearded iris and invited them to the party.  And what's a party without some decorations?  I hunted through the shed and turned up a half a dozen nice-sized terra cotta pots going idle.

A couple of hours (and a LOT of iced tea) later, the new and improved crab bed was done.

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I really like how this turned out.  It's got color and texture and focus (pretty much everything it lacked last year!) - even though nothing is actually blooming yet!  I'm really looking forward to watching the plants develop and color up over the summer.

I totally blame my new willow for this major overhaul.  It's the 'throw pillow' paradox, for sure.  You know - you buy a couple of new throw pillows to snaz up a dull room.  Instead of looking nice themselves, all they REALLY do is shine a spotlight on all the things that look ratty in that room! LOL

So there.  Now that willow has a nice place to hang out!  Ironically, I still have to PLANT the darn thing!  I know how I'll install it for elevation, but that's for another post.  ;-D