Not a Good Year for...

It has not been a good year for a number of plants in my neighborhood. Roses have taken it particularly badly. An exception has been this white rugosa. It has really taken off this year from its makeshift heeled-in spot. Not sure where to go with it, but it has gotten plenty of sun and lots of water, situated in a spot where I frequently pass with the hose. It has had four to six blooms pretty much everyday all summer and the foliage has looked beyond nice. Even with cherry-orange hips forming, it has continued to bloom. It cannot stay in this spot which it seems perfectly happy, and there lies the problem.

Part of me this summer has been on a kick to remove some of the too much of a good thing sort of plants, overhaul some sections of bed and border, and put plants where they really belong...

So where do roses belong in my garden? I hate weeding around them, particularly the thornier of them, certainly that includes rugosas, so not in a border bed. They don't seem to particularly like my scree garden. Rodents of some sort have been devouring their root systems nearly everywhere else. (A war I continue to wage...)

I am also ready, after having them toasted three years running, to remove the Annabelle hydrangeas from the side of my house. This bed seeming to be the most prone to not being reached adequately by hose; too wide to water with a soaker, and too narrow to water with a sprinkler. Certainly not a prime spot for a rugosa, where I daily consider it suitable for only succulents.

And of course nothing is moving anywhere when temperatures have been in the high 80s to low 90s with even higher humidity levels. Including the gardener...

I draw my "moving-plants-around-line-in-the-sand" on October 15. That's just 5 short weeks.

This bright phlox and sedum 'Matrona' are surprisingly good companions.
I finally moved my tall balloon flower behind them.