New year musings

Needless to say, no gardening is going on, especially during this below-normal winter. The seed catalogs have started to pour in, though, so spring hopes eternal.

I do get outside every day, to at least walk the dogs, lately to keep up with the snow. While shoveling the walk, I contemplate what to do with this, that, or the other bed or plant. Right now I think I will move the sedums, coreopsis, Stella d'Oro daylilies, dwarf fountain grass to around the trees and shrubs in the front yard, yellow things under the purple ones, purple things under the yellow ones. The northern sea oats could go on the south side of the house, where the eaves are a bit deep for true sun-lovers, and the switchgrass can be moved to full sun (front? back?) where it might just remain upright.

I'm leaning toward planting 'Clara Curtis' painted daisies under the purple smoke bush where nothing else seems to thrive. I used to have a lot of Clara but somewhere along the way, it pooped out, probably because I kept moving it. And I'm thinking of dwarf yellow zinnias for the bed by the front walk. The yucca needs to be tamed.

First priority for the backyard is a strategy to help it recover from the dogs. Actually, it is not Watson but Clio and her big feet that are the problem. We have a couple of dog parks here in town, so I may get passes and take them there to get the zooms out. Meanwhile, movable electric fencing in the backyard will be employed to keep them contained while the beds on the north and south sides of the house recover.

There are a few more dye plants I want to raise: indigo, dyers coreopsis, bedstraw, yellow cosmos, hibiscus. I'm going to try starting 'Luna Red' hibiscus again, getting the seeds from a different source. A second bed of hollyhock will also get started, as it is a biennial.

My efforts to provide shade for the AC unit have not panned out yet, so this year I will try planting a Prairie Fire flowering crab nearby. I am enamored with paperbark maple, a slow grower that will provide year-round interest. I also would not mind having a ninebark... along with a hundred other plants.

Then everywhere else I plan to plant plugs of coneflower and rudbekia, plus giant zinnias. And maybe some compass plant in this corner, cup plant in that corner. And Mexican sunflower.

What are your garden pipe dreams this winter?