Marianne’s Garden Tour
Front Garden
The front yard courtyard, made from bricks scavenged from the old Enumclaw Jr. High school. The low hedge is not boxwood, but a wonderful, cheaper and faster substitute: Euonymous fortunia "sparkle and gold" sometimes called "winter creeper." It is usually a ground cover shrub but we use a string trimmer on it twice a year to keep it a hedge about 18 inches tall and only one foot wide. The giant bird bath in the center is less maintenance than a tree or pot of flowers, plus I can float clematis blossoms and candles in the water when I want to get fancy.
Don't be so neat and tidy!
Lazy gardeners get the benefit of "petal power."
Hosta Surprise!
I grow this and other hostas in cheap plastic pots that sit above the ground to keep them harder for the slugs to get to. I just put slug bait inside the pot. The ugly plastic pot is hidden behind the dwarf impeditium rhododendrons. I even move the potted hostas around the garden to spotlight different areas. This one is calling attention to a Yak rhodie blooming pink in the back. The Yak rhodies have soft furry leaves on the back that make them weevil resistant. It is the evil weevil that makes notches in the leaves of most rhododendrons.
