I plan on putting a few annual flowers along the front edge of my newest vegetable garden since it's the first thing you see as you enter my backyard - maybe some zinnias or marigolds. It's not the greatest place for veggies appearance-wise, but it's my last patch of sun, so there you go! But I have a very large flower garden that totally surrounds my entire upper yard (my yard is on two levels, smaller at the bottom where the house is, and the largest part above a retaining wall). I have a large, English style perennial border that morphs into a woodland area as you pass under a large maple, then into what will be a Japanese influenced garden once I finish it! It's half-way there. I like to keep my veggies and flowers separate where I concentrate on perennials with only a handful of annuals. Especially in the rich soil of a veggie garden - the perennials will go crazy and take over everything! I think bergamot tea might be fine, but yarrow - yuck! I would think it would be very medicinal tasting. I've only eaten nasturtiums, pansies, roses, and chive flowers. I've grown lots of things that the herb books say are edible, but as you pointed out, they don't all taste great. Lisa

Here's a sort of rough idea done in Paint on my computer. Keep in mind that it is absolutely NOT to scale and that the plantings should actually be more irregular than is easily done in Paint, and do not represent one plant, but a block of them. This is a mostly blue & yellow bed, with some red. All the gaillardias are planted together. The groundcover sedums curve along the front and slightly up the sides. The catmints are a total of 3 plants in a triangle arrangement & sprawl over the dying bulb foliage, represented as purple here, but could be any color or combo, as nothing else in the bed will be up when they bloom. I added a tall variegated yellow & green sedum, Sedum alboroseum Mediovariegatum, (3-5 plants depending on space) to the side edge, or you could use any of the others I suggested earlier. It's nice to have something structural along the edges of beds and especially things like this sedum that has all season color. Blooms are whitish. The Boltonia & Jacob Cline are centered. You could make the bed less symetrical by moving them a bit more to one side if you prefer. They do not bloom together, but will be the tallest plants in the bed when they do bloom, except for the grasses. So they could be flipflopped front to back, or even interplanted, but remember you will probably need to cut down the monarda after bloom. The gaillardias (you didn't say what type) will bloom from mid-season to very late and I made the mums a yellow or orange or combination (on the same flower of both colors), which looks lovely with blues. Sorry, my typing is pushing down the Paint sketch. More info under it. The unnamed spaces can be filled eventually with other plantings, as I think you will have plenty of space. The yellow block on the right could be a repeat of the variegated yellow & green sedum on the left side, or any long lasting yellow perennial, such as almost any coreopsis, or yellow carpet roses (3-5 plants). (They are easy to get at from the side for trimming and cutting flowers!) The dark blues represent spiky dark blue things like Salvia May Night (3-5) or the shorter Marcus (5-7), Veronica Royal Candles or Goodness Grows (3-5), whatever fits your climate. The yellow could be any coreopsis (threadleafs 5-7, or 3 of the larger types) or any yellow daisy flower, or even a small selection of daylilies, whatever you like that blooms in June-July. The yellows and dark blues could be flipped back to front depending on the heights of the plants you select, as could the mums (remember the mums will be just green plants most of the season and may need regular pinching to be full & mounding). It's hard to tell where to put the stones without using a scale (or even with one) but you need to be able to work on the various plants. The ones in front should be surrounded by the low sedums. You'll probably have to hop onto the one behind the gaillardias to trim the catmints or pick of dead bulb foliage and you may possibly need two more stones, one on each end towards the middle of the bed, depending on how long your arms are. LOL. You could also shift the colors of the bed to a more pink-red-burgandy color scheme if you don't want all the yellow. Change the large sedums to pink-red bloomers, plant dark burgandy gaillardias, make the coreopsis a yellow with dark red-burgandy eyes, the other yellow spot could be replaced with red daylilies or red carpet roses. Have fun. Hope this help somes.

Got my seed from Alberta :) I only got 2 seedlings to germinate from the common pink variety and only one to live after planting out. I probably could have waited longer to see if I'd get more germination, but I just tossed it out into a bed...maybe I'll be surprised next spring with more babies! Really this spot probably only has room for just one anyways!! I started them on Dec 16th and got the two seedlings on May 1st. Didn't do anything special :D Bonny...Hi! Saponaria officinalis (Soapwort AKA Bouncing Bet) is a perennial in the Caryophyllaceae (Dianthus/Pink) family that can spread via seed and rhizomes. It has become a weed in many locations in the US. In the garden it's a good one to have in dry not too fertile conditions to keep speading in check. You can use the roots to make a soap, but haven't tried it myself :D Mine is called 'Flore Pleno' and apparently it's not as aggressive as the common species...so far that's been true for me over the last 4 years with average watering and moderately fertile soil. I'll bloom between now and September...if you want me to save seed just let me know. Vera

I always do better with a photo, but here are some ideas. I have daylilies in a similarly steep west-facing slope and they thrive. It's a bit sunnier than your son's and gets some roof runoff, but no supplemental water at all and now after a month with less than 1/2" rain total they seem perfectly happy. I find daylilies grow well in conditions ranging from full sun to full bright shade, though fewer flowers in shade. At the bottom of the slope where there will be more runoff, you can try Siberian iris which, though it is a spring bloomer, will look nice with your other spring bloomers and has tidy foliage the rest of the season. I have one of the goundcover thymes growing under shrubs where it gets perhaps 4 hours of sun daily, if that, so you could try that in one of the sunnier spots to get as many flowers as possible for impact. Look into some of the other geraniums (I think G biokovo has been recommended here several times) to see if any bloom later in the season. Think about hosta, especially some of the more sun-tolerant gold forms, which will add both color and texture. Mine never get watered and don't seem to suffer. You could scatter seed of some of the self-seeding annuals and half-hardy perennials and see where they are happy, like annual allysum, Verbena bonariensis, annual poppies, nicotiana, California poppies, etc. My Nicotiana was started from seed years ago and has perpetuated itself since then in shades of red, purple, pink, and white starting early summer and continuing to frost. As a bonus, their scent that wafts through the gardens and house in the evenings is a true delight. Depending on how rural it is, you could also try some of the native field wildflowers like asters and goldenrod or their cultivated counterparts if they will tolerate the part shade and dryness as their tendency to seed around will be an asset here. Some of the easy bulbs disliked by the critters like daffodils or the really large alliums can go in the sunnier spots and will need no care at all (though they will be spring and early summer blooming . . . ) Colchicum will put out leaves in the spring and has very bright pink fall flowers. Although relativley expensive, I find that they will increase slowly over the years and you will have some bright blobs of fall color. I might also add some mulch once it is planted to help keep moisture in and weeds down. I use coarse chipped tree trimmings on my steep daylily slope and renew it about every 4 years or so.