I went to Garden Fever and they don't carry that hydrangea but I did find a Golden Angel Japanese shrub mint (Leucosceptrum japonicum 'Golden Angel'). I had read in Fine Gardening that if you suffer from one-of-each-itis you can mass plants of a similar color together and achieve the same effect as massing 3 or five of one plant. In my mind the shrub mint was the same color as the hydrangea.
Turns out it's not, really.
Right now I definitely prefer the hydrangea but I'm going to wait and see what the shrub mint does. I moved a lady fern behind the hydrangea where I'd eventually put a third small shrub. The shrub mint will get 2-3 feet high and wide, about the same as the hydrangea.
The hydrangea is still a little sulky from being moved |
Here's a crappy photo of the beds before.
And now. Behind the chairs I'm smothering more grass so I can increase the beds there as well.
Proving that my brain has issues with color, I bought those chairs thinking they were chartreuse. I swear they were, under the fluorescent light of the Home Depot. I got them home and they are . . . pea green?
But I'm not really even looking over there because these guys are blooming on the other side of the yard. Yowsa.
Farewell to Spring Clarkia amoena 'Aurora' |