January is usually the month when my mood starts to soar into hypomania. Garden catalogs are arriving, filled with loveliness I want for my garden. I make lists, spreadsheets, drawings. Where can I use amsonia (at right); which variety is best; which nursery has the best price?

No – not this year. Keep looking, keep looking…

One ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia (at left) will be perfect to separate two rather garish peonies and soften their magenta color. I’ll get that from High Country Gardens. That goes on my “definite” list. So does artemisia ‘Seafoam,’ which will form the base of a floral waterfall. (I can’t afford a real pool with waterfall and fountain, so I’m going to make the image of one with plants.)

Oh how I want those 3 lilies from American Meadows! And that darling little false cypress – chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Chabo Yadori’ for my collection of dwarf conifers.

I also collect hostas (there’s my old hosta garden at right, from before I moved), and there is one I really want this year, a new dwarf called Fireworks. It’s expensive.

Yes, I love variegated foliage, but I don’t focus on foliage plants only. I want some new daylilies in soft yellow and salmon, I want the blazing red of geums, Maltese Cross and Oriental poppies. I want another fuschia ‘Gartenmeister Bonstedt’ – tried to overwinter last year’s, but Buzz Continue reading →