Rousseau My Garden

The house we moved into in September looks naked from the outside because there aren't any foundation plants around the exterior. I suppose I'm happy about that, since we can dress it up according to our taste without having to rip out existing shrubs and trees, but learning to landscape a yard from scratch has its challenges. In my dreams, my yard looks like a Henri Rousseau painting...





Take away the naked lady and strange animals, and you might have something like this...



Too bad I live in the Mid-Atlantic, where the climate won't support my dreamscape. I borrowed a pretty fabulous book from the public library that I'm using as a resource, and while the plants that thrive in my region are more traditional and conservative, at least I have the following to look forward to...



Bee Balm attracts hummingbirds, which are so small and incredible to watch. And I can also grow peonies, herbaceous perennials that I discovered during an architectural tour of a cemetery in Amiens, France. This is the Sarah Bernhardt peony.



And I plan to work in a few dahlias, because they are completely irresistible.



None of these plants address our lack of foundation plants, but I always start with the icing.