Design

raised beds in the mountains It's been such a busy spring that I haven't been able to get up to my vegetable beds in the mountains in over a month, until last weekend. They've been producing greens, greens, and more greens (my gardening companion kept bringing quite a bit back down the hill -- aka the Blue Ridge Escarpment). vegetable beds and sedum But finally, having a day to harvest most of the winter greens, and plant tomatoes and peppers, was welcome.  I was tired, but happy.  What fun to get quite a bit planted. And in our Clemson garden, the potatoes, garlic, and onions are doing well, although there's definitely some herbivore sneaking up to snag the pea shoots.  At least s/he doesn't like tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, or onions!

We've had a lot of fun creating garden space in our "low-maintenance" landscape in the mountains. sedum beds, perennial meadow, and raised beds for vegetables Hmm. We couldn't help but plant natives below the slope, establish raised beds for my vegetables, and work on a meadow/perennial bed in front (not to mention the sedum bed, hemlocks, rhododendrons, and others).  It's becoming a landscape that's fun and rewarding.

Potted carnivorous plants The small bog near our mountain house (with various pitcher plants and venus fly traps) didn't get enough sun to do well, so we converted it to sedums today. The carnivorous plants were transplanted to a tall glazed ceramic pot and the peat was excavated and stockpiled for other projects. My gardening companion reworked the bed, fishing out the plastic underlying the bog, and improved the drainage. Expanded sedum bed I transplanted lots of offshoots from the existing sedum bed (on the left) and with an addition of a large purple Madrona sedum in the center,  I'm hopeful that it will thrive.

It's been rewarding to enjoy the changes in the sedum bed in front of our small house in the mountains over the last year. The delightful sequence of flowers has been an unforeseen addition to the colors and textures of their foliage, much of which is evergreen, too. The jewel-like foliage colors contrasting with flowers of different colors and heights are quite remarkable.

Our sedum bed continues to provide a diversity of colors and textures. It's jewel-toned in morning and evening light, and now, in mid-spring, many of them are starting to flower. Flowers are merely a bonus in a group that encompasses plants that are tough, drought-tolerant, often perennial, and which have leaf shapes of all sorts.