New additions to the front beds

My new favorite garden store in the area is Stein Garden and Gifts on Watertown Plank Road. We hit some of the other places in town for essentials (Bliffert Hardware, Kellner's Greenhouse, Menards); however, for frills and fun stuff, Stein is the place. Mr. H. and I scheduled vacation time for Friday and spent some of the morning at Stein to remedy a few deficiencies in the front garden beds.

I'm sad to report that the leptodermis plants we so carefully selected from the Bluestone Perennial catalog never took off. "Little known, but a wonderful low mounding, fragrant shrub." O, leptodermis: you and I are likely to remain strangers. One became quite spindly and the other looked like it had the plant flu (kind of yellow, a bit dejected).  They have been relocated to the back yard to see if we (*cough,* Mr. H., *cough*) can nurse them along, but I do not have high hopes for the patients.

We replaced the disappointments with Pink Beauty potentilla, directly under the white petunia planter in the photo below, and Lil' Miss Sunshine bluebeard (Caryopteris x clandonensis) in the middle, the one with bright green leaves. The cost per plant was a bit higher than the prices from Bluestone Perennials, but it was worth it. People, we are edging toward LATE JUNE in Wisconsin's short growing season and I can't wait around for itty bitty plants anymore.

We also added a dark-leafed Coco Krunch weigela (on the right in the above picture). I really like purple leaves next to bright green ones!

Everything else in the front bed is coming along nicely, if slowly.  The boxwoods are established, the sedum plants are looking very healthy, the hydrangea is solid, the grass, aster, vibernum, cotton candy stachys, and centaurea all are doing fine.

While at Stein, we couldn't say no to a Blue Heaven butterfly bush (buddleia), so we stuck him in over on the blueberry side. 

We had (and still have) extra flagstones from the patio project, so we are adding a path in front of the bed. A path was in the master plan all along, but I didn't think we'd get to it this year. For once, I'm very happy about the online "how many tons of stone do you need" patio calculator that guided us to order a little too much! 

Front view. I love the blue chairs!

I assume we will be digging these in to the ground eventually, but we might just ask the energetic neighbor boy to stomp and jump on them when he feels like it. Heck, I might be out there jumping when the spirit leads.