Departed Bunny
"Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt." John Muir
The garden in the NW corner was planted with grasses, daylilies, coneflowers, and wild Lythrum or purple loosestrife, showing as the tall light-purple blooms in the upper right photo. Ken’s mom had grown it at their home for about forty years, but it is an invasive and illegal plant in Wisconsin. We destroyed it, but replaced it with a sterile variety called 'Morden’s Pink' developed at the University of Manitoba experiment station in Morden. Originally, there were several small gardens with paths, but all were connected along the entire NW side in 2003, edged with Arborvitae 'Holmstrup' yews and Barberry 'Royal Cloak'.
The towering purple-pink joe-pye weed is laden with sleeping bumblebees each night, caught there when the temperature cools rapidly. About the same time, white flower wands of Cimicifuga emit a gorgeous fragrance into the garden. The early influence of Oehme and van Sweden shows below with the heavy emphasis on Miscanthus variegatus with other perennials and grasses.
While the birches remain ten years later, most of the other plants have changed. There are clumps of monarda, pink sterile lythrum, tall rattlesnake master, calamintha, and Russian sage. Granddaughter Maeve makes her way past the pink anemones. Below the anemones are mixed with Russian sage, pink phlox, orange Canna 'Pretoria', white ribbon grass, and the huge green leaves of Darmera peltata 'Nana'.