Hi taraleigh, So far, it sounds like you've done a good job with your garden by planting things that will thrive with the good drainage that your sandy soil likely has. The only plant I could see being a problem may be the Bee Balm, since it likes rich, constantly moist, humusy soil, and can develop powdery mildew if its in a crowded spot. It sounds like you have kind of a "Cottage Garden" look going on in this bed, so I wouldnÂt worry too much about "casual" style plants next to more formal ones. In general, I think the soil conditions, moisture, PH (acid, neutral or alkaline) and light conditions that different varieties of plants need to be healthy is the main thing people should concern themselves with when planting a new garden. Then you can find plants that you like the look of, that thrive in the conditions of your particular garden area. The bloom time of various flowering perennials, as well a garden's ability to look good in the fall and winter is also a consideration. I would just "google" each of your plants, check their water, sun, and soil PH requirements, and provide them with what they need. At this point in the summer, I wouldn't transplant anything, so hopefully you are pleased with how your garden area looks for now. If you donÂt like the placement of anything, I would wait until the spring to move it. As far as your overall garden design goes, I agree with laceyvail about the arrangement. You didn't say what direction the sun is coming from in relation to this garden bed, but you may want to check that the more drought-tolerant plants are on the side that gets the most hot afternoon sun. Also, be sure that anything tall isn't creating an excessive shade area over smaller plants that needs full sun. You will have some autumn interest with your "Blue Star" aster, "Autumn Joy" stonecrop, "Blanket flower", and Artemisia "Silver Mound". Personally, I would have added some low-growing evergreen shrubs that tolerate sandy soil, such as Common Bearberry / Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) to this bed, but that would just be my preference as far as some winter interest. Not sure what your soil PH is, but your soil would need to be acidic, sandy soil to grow Kinnikinnick. The foliage of your daylilies, asiatic lilies, veronica, bee balm, delphinium, "Snow In Summer", and Shasta daisy will likely die back to varying degrees in the winter in Zone 5. But in Zone 5, the bed will most likely be covered in snow for much of the winter, so you won't notice the dormant foliage as much. In the fall or spring, you can always add an evergreen small shrub or two that tolerates sandy soil. This fall, you may also want to add some spring-flowering bulbs, so that you have some early spring interest in this garden plan. Be prepared to be pulling up some of those "Snow in Summer", Artemisia "Silver Mound", and Shasta daisies if they get too invasive in this bed. Daylilies can have buds on them for many, many days before they bloom. I prefer the pretty lemony-yellow of the "Happy Returns" to the margarine-yellow of the "Stella D'Oro", but they are both pretty easy to care for daylilies, and both bloom well. The "Stella D'Oro" is really tiny. As far as colors go, I like to keep plants with blossoms on the red-orange side of the color spectrum (such as your "Black Bird" Lily) away from plants that have purple or blue-ish blossoms (such as your delphinium, and "Lavender Joy" lily, but this is just my personal preference color-wise. Hope this helps and good luck with your new garden!

It would be helpful to know more about sundew, a picture maybe or the variety, the green house and light situation and the area you live but I can work with this. Your purple pitcher can handle lower temps than anything else. Keep wet when actively growing. Needs bright light(full sun) to color up well. The sundew may be forming hybernacula which means it could be going dormant. Hybernacula help to protect the plant from harsh environments. Depending on the plant and location, it may need to be inside by now. It's good that the vft eats but it could be well on it's way to dormancy. This plant also needs full sun to color up well. Keep wet when growing actively. The nepenthes depending on your location should probably be inside. It's getting too cold in most of the northern hemisphere to keep them outside and that may also be too much sun. Nepenthes does not observe dormancy as it is tropical and needs to be kept fairly warm. Most nepenthes don't like wet feet. Never let any of your plants go dry but let the trays dry between watering if the plants are going dormant. When they are dormant just keep the soil damp like a wrung out sponge. Only use rain, distilled or RO water. Tap water with a low PPM of TDS can also be used. There is lots more information here and doing a search for each plant will give you an almost never ending source for good reading and information. If you still have questions after doing the search then come back and ask. Most of the info I have given you is probably here somewhere but felt it was the most important stuff. Ok I'm rambling. Good luck and happy growing.

Nothing will ever really "crowd out" weeds. It's best to deal with them first, then plant. Mulching makes it easy to keep up with the weeding by discouraging all but the most persistent (save for creepers, like Bermuda grass or polygonum). What's your Sunset zone? How much frost do you get? How much sun or shade? What's the soil like, and how much do you want to water? 100' isn't really that long - except by our urban standards, LOL - but for interest you want to think in "layers". Many beginning gardeners fail to do this and it's the real dividing line between a garden that looks good all year round and one that seems dull half the year. Having an evergreen groundcover like iberis won't help if what you're missing is top height or medium height plants. It's hard to give you an idea of plants without some indication of how wide an area you're talking about. I've got the typical urban lot with beds chopped up by various paths of concrete, so some of them are 15' wide and some are 12 inches! For instance, here's a 10' wide front yard bed. We built a center berm with concrete blocks to give height to a Meyer lemon standard planted in the middle. In back is a red-flowering leptospermum to "frame" everything. This photo is from mid-December 2007, so there is very little in bloom. Color mostly comes from foliage and fruit. There's a few iris and a euryops, but even the leptospermum in bloom against the house, is fairly subtle: Now, compare that to the gaudy show the garden makes in April and May. This is from last year, so there's a pink Argyranthemum where the yellow-flowered Euryops is now; but otherwise everything's pretty much the same. Note on the far right, towards the corner of the house, we added height with a trellis that gets covered by a coral-flowering passiflora I have to cut back every winter before it takes over the neighbor's nandina and strelitzia. There's also a Tibouchina urvilleana for medium height/evergreen/bloom, and a variegated sweetgum for top layer height (gets to 30-35' which is perfect for the city) in that bed against the fence. I put the trees on the right side because our property slopes so steeply downhill, we need the height to balance out the overall view of the property when viewed head-on. Here's another section that may give you some ideas. This is a long narrow stretch, approx 145' downhill, south-facing. Alongside the house, the bed is less than 2' wide; against the fence opposite, the bed is 12" wide. These measurements follow the length of the house and back porch (45'), then widen slightly in the back yard itself. Here's March 2007: cannas and grass cut back, roses just leafing out, no bulbs showing: Here's May 2007 as a comparison: Beautiful as April and May are, there remains something good to look at all year round. Pelargoniums, passifloras, osteospermums, abutilon, salvia, clivia, ferns, erysimums, helichrysum, hellebore, limonium, cestrums, plectranthus, tecomaria, stacchys.....whew, the list goes on and on. But without knowing more about your siting requirements, not much of this will help.

The sedums may be losing the battle to the weeds because they will need sunnier conditions to thrive - full to part shade is not an ideal siutation for them. I'd consider using a more shade tolerant groundcover in this area. London Pride, Saxifraga umbrosa or x urbium has an appearance similar to many stonecrop sedums and is evergreen and extremely shade tolerant. If the area is contained by sidewalk and street, any of the other, more aggressively spreading shade GC's like ajuga, pachy or vinca will work equally well and not require constant monitoring.