A Favorite Corner

I have this little corner, right next to the garage, where I've softened the line of the driveway/sidewalk by using some of the indigenous (as in, came with the house) landscape block to round off the corner. Last year, the little corner also contained one of the tile planters that I moved closer to the house this spring.

This year, without the orange of the tile planter, the humble combination of golden-edged lemon thyme, blue fescue that I started from seed, and the dianthus that Mom gave me a start of several years back has really been capturing my imagination.

It's particularly pretty in the morning light, with the fescue and dianthus both in flower:

I didn't do a great job of combing out the dead blades in the fescue this spring (okay, I didn't do it at all, I admit) so the bleached blades mingle with the healthy light blue ones to make a ghostly white impression in the rising sun:

Right now I'm kicking myself for not being organized enough to have planted my "cole crops" as early as I should have. If only this red cabbage in the foreground was a little bit bigger, it would really have made a statement next to the dianthus:

I'll make a mental note next year and see if I can remember to try that. It seems like my version of GADS is particularly oriented toward forgetting what I had planned to improve on from year to year, however. For example, I don't have all of my tomatoes and peppers in the ground yet...

But enough of that negative talk. Instead, let's just look at my favorite shot (so far) of the little corner garden. You can see all of the plants mingling pleasantly, with the bottom of the asclepias incarnata 'Cinderella' (WS'd last year thanks to the generosity of Colleen at In the Garden Online) showing at the very top left:

There, that's much better. Kind of cooling, even, which is good for such a hot, humid week.

On that note, I should say that the weather finally broke tonight. The storms came through just after my 2's game at 6pm (playing 2's in 95 degree heat and heavy humidity is not fun, btw) and soaked the garden with a half inch of rain. But the air outside is now much more livable, and the high tomorrow should only reach a bit past 80. Whew!