Cottage Garden 4

I went to Lowe's this afternoon to get the paint for my china cabinet, and of course had to look at the plants. Actually, I headed to the plants first, because something outside Lawn and Garden caught my eye as I parked my car: Russian Sage!

Since the beginning thoughts of my garden, I have admired pictures of Russian Sage, but I've never seen any healthy-looking sage for sale anywhere, until today. So I came home with three of them, and also bought a few other plants to try out: Blue Daze, Salvia, and Blue Sage. I set them around in my garden, and even amongst the tall tomatoes they look great! (I'm becoming anxious for the day that I can pull the tomatoes out and start the flowerbeds over as FLOWERbeds.)

Our house has taupe-colored siding with black shutters. I like the monochromatic look of purple-blues with accents in white and pink against our house. It's restful to me.

Since the nursery man hasn't called yet, I've decided to take matters into my own hands for coming up with a design. I drew up some plans today on graph paper. I'm finding that it's a good thing that I do this, or I would buy way too many plants, and they wouldn't necessarily go together well, or fit anywhere. The bed to the right of my porch I'm going to expand to double the size it currently is, and will be able to put in some pretty specimens. The bed to the left of the porch is awful, though. -- Since it's only 3 feet wide (and 30 feet long), and the eaves overhang 2 of those 3 feet, it's a problem child. Most shrubs will spill onto the sidewalk. (I'm okay with this, but finding one that doesn't obliterate the sidewalk is tricky.)
And I will have to water incessantly, as rain doesn't reach most of it. Trying to balance an area this long and skinny is also difficult. So . . . This may not be my favorite side of the house. Ha!