more plants!

I'm really on a gardening craze right now.

At my favorite nursery, Wolf Trap on route 7, I bought some more blue hostas (and one green variegated one) to go under shrubs on either side of the back of the house. It looks nicer there already.

I bought a few herbs to fill in what's missing for my kitchen use- an oregano

and english thyme.

I got this little sedum plant called stonecrop just because it's so cool-looking.

I stopped at h depot for some wood doweling to improve my coldhouse and found chocolate mint!

Also bought a cinnamon basil, just because I'd never seen that before and it smells lovely and my husband loves cinnamon. It's supposed to be good in asian dishes.

Then I visited a fellow gardener who lives just ten minutes away. Her yard is right against the woods, she grows lots of deer-resistant shade plants and I bought ferns and bedding plants from her last year.

I really only went over there to get some more japanese sage and a few ferns, but walking through her gardens she found this and that plant growing out of bounds, and I came home with so much more!

Arum- a crazily tropical-looking thing

a pretty type of sedum

bleeding heart

turtlehead

more columbines

joe pye weed 'chocolate'

and mayapple. This last one spread into her yard from the woods- it's a podophyllum, also called american mandrake. I didn't know much about this plant until I looked it up- it needs deep shade or will die back in the summer heat, it likes to stay moist but not soggy, it is prone to rust disease. I might have to move it around to find a spot it likes- against the shade side of the house might be better...

Also not pictured: lily of the valley and spring beauty- tiny bits of stuff. I spent half the day out in the rain and mud today, turning compost, digging holes, walking around the yard again and again to find the most suitable spot for each plant. I put the ferns, salvia and turtlehead around the base of trees, the columbines and bleeding heart among the hostas. Mayapple a row in the back, lilies of the valley a line alongside the house on the shady side, joe pye 'choc' on the other side in the sun. I was cold and stiff by the time done planting but it was worth it, the plants all look good, not a single one wilted. It's supposed to rain for three more days, and then when the sun shines I bet they are happy again ready for some decent pictures.