MY WILDLY ABANDONED BED: LATE SPRING

Not only have I been taking a class called the Art of Wild Abandonment, I've also created my first ever Wildly Abandoned flower bed! Normally, I'm all about design and composition -- about getting the perfect combination of colors, heights and textures. However, after planting everything we had purchased at the nurseries last fall and early spring, I still had this one bed that was mostly empty, and I was feelin' kinda lazy. Plus, it's the bed that the deer have easiest access to, so I didn't want to put a whole lot of money into it. The only things in it were three rudbeckias and that amazon dianthus, all picked up out at the Arnosky's big blue barn, and a sprig of lantana that had barely managed to survive the drought and freezes of the last couple of years. Since I also had a veggie drawer in my fridge that was full of leftover wildflower seeds, I decided "What the heck!" I mixed them all together and just tossed them out, then added a few liatris bulbs, a division from my big Magilla perilla plant, and decided to just sit back and see what happens. I thought it might be fun to take pictures of it every couple of months, just to see how it changes through the seasons. Hmmmm, now that I think about it, maybe I should call it my Seasonality bed!

The magenta-colored dianthus, a cool-weather plant, was the first to come into bloom. I cut off it's towering stalks and brought them into the house for Easter. It's still giving us a nice splash of color, but I expect that will fade as the weather warms up. Next to pop up were the pink and white cosmos flowers (from Wildseed Farms), followed closely by these precious little orange and yellow Persian Carpet butterfly zinnias (from Renee's Garden).

The lantana (Irene, I think) has finally filled out and come into bloom, and the tall liatris stalks are just beginning to show some color...

but it looks like these rudbeckia blooms will be stealing their thunder before long.

As you can tell from the pictures at the top, I haven't thinned out the seedlings, or done much of anything, really. Like I said, we're just gonna sit back, and see what happens. Could be interesting, huh?