The Entry Garden Disaster

As you may recall, in June I was very excited to be creating my first new garden in almost a decade. It was supposed to be an "Entry Garden". It was supposed to make a statement along the lines of: "Welcome to my house, I'm a gardener, can you tell?". I dug out a large crescent from my driveway, along my walk, to my doorstep. I inserted a rosebush, a few perennials I had collected from other gardens and whole lot of annual seeds. It wasn't terribly impressive when I finished:

But I wasn't concerned. The rosebush was going to grow and spread, the perennials were going to get huge and all those seeds were going to sprout and practically crowd everything else out. I knew it would take a while. After a month it still didn't look like much:

I spread the seedlings out so they would have plenty of room to grow, but after six weeks, the effect was definitely low-impact:

The two month mark looked a bit more hopeful:

Three months went by. September 1. Definitely underwhelming.

Even the asters blooming two weeks later was no help:

My garden was a dud! In full view of the entire neighborhood, no less. No hiding this disaster in the backyard. Oh, I know what you're thinking. "It's shady, you dumbass". Only early in the morning. I take my camera with me when I dump my coffee grounds in the composter after breakfast. I make a tour of my gardens and take pictures. My front yard gets sun all afternoon. If you'll bear with me, you'll see what it looks like in the afternoon.

This is my week to take time off from work to plant all my bulbs. I'm also enlarging all my beds. All of the annuals except the bachelor buttons and marigolds were ripped out, the bed enlarged and almost 100 bulbs were planted. Snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, tulips and lilies. Also my Phlomis tuberosa and a Grosso lavender from my herb bed at Davidson Mill Pond Park. The Provence lavender didn't make it. It got shaded out. I'll just order one in the spring. I also have my eye on a white lavender. I'll also be adding poppies in the spring. This is what it looks like right now:

It's kind of weedy. I'm leaving it that way to help hold the soil. It sits on a slope. The ends are squared off temporarily. In the spring, I will finish extending it around the sidewalk (top of the picture) and then dig out a circle at the bottom for a rosebush.

I'm leaning towards Terese Bugnet. I want a rose that blooms all summer. I know Kasmira has been please with hers. I would welcome her comments on this rose and if she thinks it could be trained as a pillar rose.

Now I just have to wait for spring. In the meantime, I have to somehow keep the squirrels from digging up all my bulbs. I'm sure my neighbors are quite relieved that they no longer have to look at my scraggly excuse for a garden. Or are they horrified that it is getting bigger?