Little Touches

I added some new additions and little touches with new plants this week.  

First, I started with a Bleeding Hearts (Heliopsis hellianthoides var. scabra "Bleeding Hearts') just to the right of Guanyin. 

I like the color of this plant, a dark green almost brown leaf, but the plant should bloom some nice yellow flowers. The size seemed right at 3-4' in hight and 12-18" wide, perfect for the gap near the Gaunyin statue. I am hoping this plant will help fill in that gap and hide the foundation from view. The plant colors also match the color of the statue and some of the existing plants. 

I also bought two small Tiarella 'Fingerpaint' Foamflower plants. 

I placed these in the narrow long bed at the east end of the garden. I have struggled to find plants for this area for many years. 

 

Given that these like shade, I am hopeful they will do well. Critters don't seem to like eating the ones I have elsewhere. However, this is a slug area within the garden and I will have to see how well they hold up to a slug assault. I really like the color scheme, the dark brown within the green looks fantastic.

I added an inexpensive annual Purple Fountain Grass to fill in a space where a previous perennial grass was looking sparse. 

I liked the color and it fills in the space nicely. I did something similar last year and it really added some interest to the garden. Unfortunately, as an annual I will need to replace it next year.

I decided to rework the bed  along the right side of the Dwarf Korean Fir (Abies koreana 'Cis') I planted back in 2015. I used to plant some small Daylily here, but they became too big over time. I have left it empty ever since, but now that the Fir has become large, the bed seemed to be in need of reshaping with some new stones. Doing so allowed my to make a new space for a different plant. I am trying an Orchid Frost Deadnettle (Lamium maculatum 'Orchid Frost'). 

It likes partial shade and will spread, but I should be able to keep it under control and within its new bed. It has a nice little pink flower, but I have to watch that slugs don't devour it - they like flowing plants like these.

I do like that it is a low lying groundcover, hence its placement near the top of the bed.

I also wanted to fill the two red pots I bought last year. I decided on a Catching Fire Foamy Bells (Heucherella x "Catching Fire") for the large pot. 

The light green color and the inner brown/red veins on the leaves will go well with the bright red of the pot. For the smaller pot I bought a simple Dahlia ('Dahlietta' Candy). 

I like the dark green leaves, and the flower colors of bright yellow and red should look good with this bright red pot. 

Both pots look great. I will keep them both near the gazebo post.

Finally, I purchased two large Hameln Fountain Grasses (Pennisetum alopecuriodes 'Hemeln') for each of the large red pots along the zen garden wall. 

 

I planted a similar, but smaller type of fountain grass in these pots last year, and I really liked the look. They should suffer minimal slug damage and at the end of the season I can transplant them to permanent locations within the new stroll garden area. They need full sun, so I will have to keep an eye on them, but if I eventually move them to the stroll garden, they will get plenty of sun.