Beds in the Sun III

To finish off my saga of the backyard bed layout requested by GaiaGardener, I'm moving to another picture, a continuation of the previous beds showing the beds laying to the south-west corner of that area.  The previous posts on this subject were Beds in the Sun and Beds in the Sun II.

I've already mentioned the bed labeled "J", my "Barden Bed" which is a group of 12 roses, mostly Paul Barden creations obtained commercially from Rogue Valley roses.  I've added a number of new daylily starts to the outside of this bed, hopefully to bloom after these once-blooming gallica and alba creations are long done.

Bed K is a long border, my "Viburnum Bed" the third oldest in the garden, composed mostly of mixed shrub roses and about 8 viburnums in full sun.  People always seem surprised to see the viburnums growing in full sun here, but they are troublefree in this location. It is anchored on the East (left) side by an 'Arnold's Red' Bush Honeysuckle, and on the West (right) side by a 'Golden Spirit' smoketree, the latter now 5 years old and about 7 feet tall.  Several Old Garden Roses are placed here, including 'Celestial', 'Duchess de Montebello', 'Charles de Mills', and 'Rosa Mundi.'  There are also a few assorted other roses, including the rugosa 'Sir Thomas Lipton', 'Dornroschen', and Buck roses 'Carefree Beauty', 'Griff's Red', 'Freckles', and 'April Moon'.  A couple of nice grasses, Panicum 'Northwind', and Miscanthus sinensis 'purpurascens', along with a Sumac 'Tiger Eyes', provide some late Fall color along with the viburnums.

Bed L is my most formal bed, composed of nothing but Buck roses, English roses, Modern Shrub roses, and a very few Floribundas and Hybrid Teas.  If it's a modern hybrid-tea-like rose, it is likely in this bed, surrounding a concrete bench.  There are a few OGR's here as well, 'Leda',  'Variegata di Bologna', and 'Henri Martin' as well.  There are, at last count 58 living roses in this bed.

Bed M is a long bed laying among the three taller beds and it is the oldest of what were my mixed iris and daylily beds.  Here again, the iris keep fading out, overwhelmed by the daylilies, and so I'm converting the bed to daylilies only.  I mow this one off every fall as mentioned in previous posts.

The last of these beds, Bed N, is my "Rose Berm" and it is the oldest bed in this part of the garden.  It was created 10 years ago by a gift from my mother of two truckloads of topsoil spread in a long hump, so it is mostly a raised berm about 2 feet higher than the surrounding prairie.  Along with the topsoil, I got lots of bindweed seed that I have to continually watch for even a decade later.  This bed is anchored by a 'Purple Fringe' smokebush at one end and a 'Blue Bird' Hibicus syriacus at the other, but otherwise there are about 30 roses in the bed, ranging from several Canadian Roses such as 'Alexander MacKensie' and 'Morden Ruby', to Old Garden Roses such as Bourbon 'Louise Odier' and Damask 'Madame Hardy', and even a couple of (gasp) Knockout's; 'Double Red', and 'Double Pink'. My Rosa eglanteria is here, as well as one of my two 'Austrian Copper' bushes, and a 'Harison's Yellow'.

So that's it, my main garden.  I'm going to wait awhile and talk about other things, but eventually I'll give you an overall glimpse of my front, back, and side landscaping beds.   Hope this helps place things I've mentioned in this blog!