Plant Quest

Ever hear the saying 'the cobbler's children have no shoes'?

Well...this little landscape architect has some garden problems at Chez Dame.

You know, little problems, like say... evolving in a quirky way, instead of actually starting with a unified design and following through. It's not a horrible thing, since this is a modest little cottage-style house. It embraces quirky, and so do Smithy and I.

On the other hand, my own garden isn't exactly portfolio material. So, to that end, as spring is fast approaching my Southern city, I'm thinking organizational thoughts about the garden. I'm attempting to prioritize.

The first thing on the new list of garden improvements is to work on the front garden. We started out doing one thing, then one day I came home to find that Smithy built some walls somewhere else, and now...well.... The cobbler's children have no shoes. Or maybe it should be that the cobbler's children have some really crazy looking shoes.

In different colors.

And possibly in mismatched sizes.

So, you know, I ought to be figuring out how to make the bed lines match from one side of the front walk to the other. And give Smithy some idea of what to do with the second-hand granite we want to use for a new front walk. And be thinking about how to screen the petroleum warehouse downhill from my house. (charming, no?) And pulling together a more soothing color palette for the plants in the front - probably more white and green. And I need to do something with the spirea that is approximately the size of my car right now. And on and on. Practical things like that.

But you know what I want to do? I really really want to track down more of this lovely, fragrant Camellia I spotted at a (pricey) local nursery last weekend. This is the best pic I could find online of Camellia Cinnamon Cindy:

(obviously, photo courtesy of www.nzplantpics.com)

Do I need it? Not really.
Will it work in the front garden? Not necessarily.
Is it hard to find, and likely to be expensive? Probably!
But, but, it's a fragrant Camellia!

And then there's the purply foliaged rose, Rosa Glauca, I saw in England two summers ago.

It's different, it's got ornamental foliage, and I haven't really seen it in my area. (Perhaps that should tell me somthing?) It can even tolerate some shade. In fact, here in the 'Humidity Belt' in the south, it just may need a touch of shade. Even NPR's Ketzel Levine raves about this one. Surely, it's a must-have?

Sigh. This is exactly the reason the garden is the way it is.