Circles

I am going around in circles with the circle garden. It's so challenging. 

I've been at it for years now, adjusting, redesigning, adding plants, moving border rocks. It disappoints.

Everything is skimpy and tiny, and while some things look nice (the Blonde Ambition grass, the Sweet Summer Love vine, the pineleaf penstemons) other things have failed and simply do not grow.

So there's little to see other than mulch and new things which are tiny, I keep trying to see if I can get anything to thrive. Every summer the garden appears undeveloped.

The thyme bed under the white bowl has stubbornly refused to fill in the gaps after a couple years now.

There's nothing to see. Just mulch. In June already.

In my mind I have visions like this -- it's A.I. and things are out of kilter, like the crabapple, which is too far from the rock border, but.

In this artificially matured garden picture I like the idea of getting rid of the circle -- I'd eliminate the bowl and apron of thyme under it. Eliminate the full mulch path all the way around, and just have an opening in the rocks leading down a short mulched path to the bench. 

That's it. The rest is dense planting. The bench is the focal point and mini destination and a place to sit and observe all the plants in front of it.

Or, what if I relied less on plants to define the circle and more on some chairs placed near the bench? Use flagstones to fill in the blank of the circle path.

I like this. But, we'd need shade and an umbrella might not be enough. And this would make the third sitting area in a tiny garden. And the second flagstone patio look, right next to the other flagstone patio. Too much? Or soothing repetition?

I don't actually have that depth of area from entrance to fence. If I tried this it would be cramped.

Could I get Engelmann's daisy to look like this?

These ideas are whole redesigns and more thanI can contemplate.

Here's what, at a minimum, I need to do when my foot allows:

Take out the dwarf and spindly things.

• Take out the thready Orange Kudos agastaches and put them in the bigger vase shaped pot on the table. The thin leaved hybrid agastaches wilt a lot in this climate.

• Take out the buckwheat, Electric Blue penstemon and failed nepeta. They all resent the wood mulch, garden soil, and nearby irrigation emitters.

• Take out the dwarf Black Adder agastache -- need a bigger plant there.

Add bigger plants

• Behind the Perfect Profusion bun add a dwarf Russian sage for airy color and background presence

• Where the buckwheat, penstemon and nepeta were, replace them with 
• Engelmann's daisy
• one of the blue fescues
• Caradonna salvia
• A regular sized (not dwarf) Black Adder agastache

•  Where the orange agastaches were, replace them with an Orange Glow knockout rose. (Andrea's, tucked in with other plants, is not too big but tall enough and upright. I really like it and it's so easy to grow.)

      BUT . . . 

🏵 Update to the rose plan: I decided the rose would be too much there, and I already have orange Playboy rose nearby.

So I put Leilani yellow coneflowers in the circle where the agastaches were. They are sturdy, bright happy looking plants in the kitchen courtyard and they don't hide the moss rocks behind them.

Caradonna salvia, Orange Glow Knockout rose and Engenmann's daisy

Mingle things

Mingle Texas mealycup sages in and around and behind the other plants for a looser look. And aristata blanketflowers too -- will need to try those again from seed.

Plant the rock border

And I still want to soften the moss rock border with spreading groundcovers as I had planned last winter.