jeepers, creepers

I thought I should report on the front path to our house.  It's not a very inspiring part of the garden, more of a chore to take care of.  It's involved lots of destruction, cutting down plum trees and ornamental plums.  They were pretty, but they constantly just into the narrow path and they were so shaded by the birches they'd go mildewy by the autumn.  So now this is all that's left - three lovely birch trees with camellias at one end and my kaffir lime at the other.

But I'm slowly starting to integrate some plants into the bed.  One annoyance is that blackbirds love kicking the barkdust into the path so I'm planting some creepers to keep the bark in place.  The first thing I planted was some cuttings of Kenilworth ivy.  Remember these?  Back in January they were little threads I'd pinched from a crack in the sidewalk.  Now there are three or four lush clumps already forming little purple flowers (you can't really see them in this photo).

But I also decided to mix it up with some native violets.  They're shade-lovers and look remarkably similar to Kenilworth ivy; if you look closely the leaves are shaped slightly differently.  I had to buy these but split the plant into two before planting it.

In addition to some creepers, I'm slowly planting some taller shade-lovers along the fence.  I've planted some cuttings of plectranthus but so far one died and two aren't thriving very well, we'll see how they go.  But I also bought a little white calla lily.  It's flowering for the first time now.  It's tiny now but one day will be a big, lush clump!

Hopefully one day this walk will be a lush, beautiful welcome walk to our house.

more fun with cuttings

The cuttings are doing great in this warmish, damp weather.  The kenilworth ivy all rooted really well, as you an see here, so I decided to plant it out along the narrow front bed under the birch trees.  The blackbirds kick the bark dust into the path all the time, so I'm hoping it'll form a mat that along the edge so there's nothing for them to kick.

Three out of the four salvia cuttings have taken, and almost all the Mona lavender cuttings are taking too.  I don't know what I'll do with all these plants but it's good to have them on hand.  The Mona lavender cuttings in the ground are starting to spring up nicely too.

With a bit of patience, cuttings sure are a great way of getting free plants.  I'm finding that the trick is to keep them moist at all times but not too wet, and to make sure they don't get too hot.

final plans for the west bed

I widened the front half of the west bed last weekend and decided on ajuga reptans "black scallop". It's probably the darkest form of ajuga, I though the colour would be a nice contrast to the black stems on the colocasia, and the flowers are a nice bonus. They're just little now but they'll spread a fair bit.

Not that you can see them, but here's the bed with the ajuga in.

I though long and hard about what to put between the ajuga, if anything. I finally decided on more plectranthus "mona lavender" after being given an unexpected opportunity to try to strike some cuttings. Yet another limb snapped off (dang that plant is brittle) but this time I thought I'd try to make some new plants from it. I've got a whole set of cuttings going now! On the right is Kenilworth ivy, on the left are cuttings from my tequila blue salvia, and after this photo I added some from the plectranthrus. So far none of them have died and the salvia's already sprouting new growth.

In any case, the pletranthrus should look lovely with its dark green foliage and the purple-black undersides. I still haven't seen it flower yet but it's meant to be beautiful.