Lady's Mantle in the Rain, and Other Garden Notes

I don't think you can get enough Lady's Mantle in a garden.  I have only a couple tiny clumps of it.  I realize this year I need to encourage a lot more.  It is like clematis, they need a year or so to establish themselves, but are probably worth the wait.

I am going to have to dig for the tag on this clematis.  It is a pale pink mauve with deep purple stamens.  It is pumping out the blooms in this, it's second year.

Clematis 'Blue Dancer' with its seed heads and very decorative maroon stems, both are added benefits long after the petals have dropped on this one.

Don't you love how the moisture beads up on these leaves.

This is rose 'Belinda's Dream', the only rose I have seen in my garden with a couple of rose chaffers.  I have it planted in a large pot and placed it in my box planter, which I moved to full sun.  I bought it as an own root, bare root rose before the ground was unfrozen here  (something that did not happen until May 5 here).  (I may need to move it to a special spot by the house.  The fragrance is very charming and very sweet.  

This is the corner everything was hastily heeled into after my fall late last summer.  Now that my commitment to summer school is over, I seriously can think over what this spot should contain.  I haven't been able to put my left foot on a shovel and apply any sort of force, yet, nor support myself on the left and dig with my right foot.  Moving plants has been problematic.  Handsome Son transplants like a person using a chainsaw to carve a turkey.  If I simply want something big and dead removed, he's the man...

After cutting this to the ground last year, and our bad winter, the smoke and size on my smokebush is remarkable and very dramatic.

This is a cute veronica, I think 'Sonja'.

Clematis texensis, 'Diana' always seems to hide its few blooms behind the honeysuckle.  The vine is enormous, the ratio of flowers not so much.

I have not been able to capture how pretty this really is.  The native blue spiderwort couple with the very tame 'Concord Grape' and Stella is nice.  I have  a large drift of native pale lilac beebalm preparing to flower here as well.  Maybe that will add the photogenic tough this spot craves.  A peculiar note, I typically pinch my beebalms.  I pinched the native, too, and the result was no flowers.  This is a first for me and beebalm.  I can't imagine there might be a dramatic cultural difference between it and the cultivars, but I can't discount that.

This annual iberis has been about the best and nicest surprise in my garden this year.  I grew it from seed quite late, in late April.

Cinnamon is back from her nearly year-long stay in Illinois when I could not care for her.  Having her on a lead is still problematic for me, but I can attach her to an overhead guide wire now, so she can't pull me down stairs.

Now that the yews have been removed from behind the 'Crimson Frost' birch I am quite liking there absence.  I had a pink Knockout rose die here this winter.  This is another spot needing some serious redesign.

Heartbreaking, my privet hedge died to the ground this spring.  I waited until mid-June and noticed growth coming (finally).  It will be a year at least until it regains its glory, but replacing it and waiting would have taken much longer and I liked how it looked, shown here in front of the dappled willow.

So, on this 4th of July, I am finally ready to attempt to get my garden ship-shape...So glad it is not on a garden walk this year!