Surrendering to the Pink

Last June I whined about too much Barbie pink in my garden and in my neighborhood, refusing to love the Pink Crepe Myrtle which grows in the area connecting our front sidewalk and drive to the garden gate.

This space was lawn when we bought the house - we Divas of the Dirt started the changeover to garden in March 2006, by transplanting three spiraeas into a group near the front sidewalk.

After my friends left, I used the spiraeas as the frame for a Bat-shaped bed, planting passalong iris, coneflowers, balloon flowers and a pink bat-faced Cuphea among them. The scorned pink crepe myrtle stands at left in the above March 2007 photo. The white trunk in the background is a Yaupon holly.

This spring I chose to embrace La Vie En Rose. Instead of fleeing rosy tones, I'd wallow in Blush & Bashful, Hot Pink & Magenta, and create a Pink Entrance Garden as an extension of the Bat-bed. Using a weed whip, I scribed a deep groove into the lawn, enclosing the pink crepe myrtle as an anchor at the outer edge. Once the shape looked right, Philo and I removed the turf, dug up the whole bed and added compost and decomposed granite.

Hardscape can be expensive and tree removal ate most of this year's garden budget. I'd like to install brick or stone edging some day, but these rocks also qualify as hard, and they were free for the hauling.

[Don't give up .... the photos won't all be beige and brown.]

We chose medium to large rocks with pink or rosy tones and picked up flat ones for stepping stones. Evergreens added green bones to the design - a Spring Bouquet Viburnum and a Texas Mountain Laurel from the Natural Gardener . The souvenir Weigela from Howard's Nursery should do well here.

Then I went shopping in my own garden - digging up pink plants that warred with adjacent flowers, taking divisions of crowded plants and rescuing pink plants that needed more sun.
I wanted everything to bloom in shades of pink, lavender, blue, purple and white, but with lots of contrast in foliage shape and size. I planted passalong White Iris, Pink Skullcaps/ Scutellaria suffrutescens and a small Hesperaloe, also called Red Yucca. I transplanted extra seedlings of Larkspur, Verbena bonariensis and Malva zebrina, teased a small piece of Grandma’s Phlox off the main plant, unpotted pink Chrysanthemums, sneaked out an Amarcrinum bulb from a container, added Liatris/Gayfeather from the plant-rescue table, moved Sedum that was too crowded, and transplanted Platycodon/Blue Balloon flowers & Echinacea purpurea/ Pink Coneflowers from the Bat-bed.

Soon the 'Pinocchio’ Daylily had sunlight again; the 'Champagne' Mini-rose found a home; native white Cooper's Rainlilies were released from a container. Most of what I chose was fairly tough stuff, some of it was native and much of it would be drought-resistant if I could get it established.

While the new bed was being developed, the bridal wreath spiraea in the Bat-Bed distracted the eye and kept the focus on its froth of white flowers in April.
As the spiraea faded, Ellen’s purple iris burst into glorious bloom. Today the liriope edging is filling out while flowers in the Bat-bed include ‘Coral Nymph’ Salvia, pink rainlilies, purple coneflower and the large pink bat-faced cuphea.
Once the too-close coneflowers and Balloon Flowers were moved to the pink bed, the Cuphea had room to grow tall and full.

I opened my wallet and paid for a few plants. Our local grocery store wanted $5 for a one-gallon pot holding three plants of dwarf Pink Gaura. I bought a Rugosa Rose called ‘Therese Bugnet’ described as tough, pink and fragrant. I found Pink Pansies for the hanging basket in late spring, [replaced with Evolvolus 'Blue Daze' for summer] and planted a strain of Heirloom Petunias in pink, white, magenta and lavender.

Garden blogger-turned Mommy-blogger Martha passed along some unnamed Crinum bulbs, which were tucked in on either side of the Crepe myrtle. Pam/Digging passed along a young Mexican Oregano which went in front of the tree. Liriope divisions from another bed are tiny now, but will someday define the back edge. I planted seeds of Amaranth and Cosmos.

We added more hardscape with a repainted old bench from the back yard, placing it between the new bed and the garden gate to act as bait for strolling chlorophyll lovers.

So how did My Life in Pink work out?

We rushed to make the new bed before the heat & drought arrived. A rainier-than-normal spring meant that the native plants like Liatris, Coneflowers and white trailing lantana looked wonderful in May and June and the Cooper's lilies bloomed.
The rains helped settle in the larkspur, balloonflowers, skullcap, 'Champagne' mini-rose, heirloom petunias and malva. I was sure that if the plants looked this good in June, they'd look even better by the time the pink crepe myrtle bloomed.

It's now late in July, the heat hasn’t arrived yet, and Austin is in the middle of the rainiest year ever recorded - we've had another 3 and 1/2 inches just since Monday. Many plants look kind of beat-up and overgrown - like this 'dwarf' 3-foot tall gaura. The Texas Mountain Laurel is not happy to be living here. The Scuttelaria is looking cranky. The bed is looking very shaggy! I'd hoped that keeping the grass edged around the bed would give it definition, but the electric edger can't be used when every day is rain day.

The phlox is alive, but neither the new division nor the original plant bloomed this year. The cosmos has had a couple of flowers, the amaranth never sprouted.

I'm still hoping that the pink garden can bring other gardeners to my garden gate.

But we can sit on the bench and bask in the watermelon pink glow of the crepe myrtle that started it all.

We can also look at that ‘Therese Bugnet’ rose, appointed as the Queen of Pink...she's a beauty, but her name is not Therese.