Hi Brien, well I finally got moved in. I went to Capital Nursery and bought quite a few flowers: Gayfeather Coneflower Aster Red Hot Poker Day Lily As well as vegetables. However, the plants are dying or wilting! I have left all of the flowers in their original containers. The coneflower and aster have very wilted leaves and look sick. I have been watering them every other day, as I figured they were drought tolerant. Having to water every day does not seem drought tolerant to me. The vegetables have been a huge failure. Both cucumber plants are completely dead. The peppers are doing ok but look very wilted. The marigolds are drying and dying as well. The beans are pretty much all gone. Strawberry plant is looking rather frail. The parsley is on its way out. The only things looking like they are doing ok are the tomato plants and watermelon *fingers crossed*. I have been watering the vegetables every day. I bought some soil amendment mixed with worm castings and placed some bat guano, bone meal, and blood meal into each hole in the ground. What is going on?? Is the direct sun scorching these plants? This gardening experience is turning into a disaster. The cosmos, salvia, and zinnias appear to be doing quite well, however.

I am one zone higher than you and have no problem over wintering them on the west side of the house (which probably gives them an additional half zone at least advantage). They are about three feet tall now. Last year, there was no die back and they were evergreen but the winter before, there was some dieback, but in the spring I just cut back whatever was dead looking and they regrew. Growth is much more vigorous in the ground as long as you can get them to overwinter. I don't protect them really at all. I realize these are trees but my vision is to eventually espaliate them. They offer the additional advantage in that deer to not touch them because they are aromatic. By the way, I never used to get bay t really perform in a container. I suspect my mistake was like most peoples'. Unlike other herbs we grow, these want to be TREES, and my containers were not large enough. Good luck!

Jenn, You are getting snow? We are getting another sprinkle. This year has been ridiculous. So based on the comments here, I guess the plan is to do as much as possible with raking leaves and cleaning dead things out and working on the compost piles. Our ground is soft so maybe we should dig the new bed awhile. That way I can still get some things accomplished without disturbing plants. Laceyvail - Wow! We stopped trying to grow soft fruit trees like apricots for that very reason. The blueberries are grown in pots so I can move them to a sheltered location if strange weather threatens, though moving 32 huge pots presents its own challenges. The strawberries so far have not affected by late spring freezes but again, I have trees on that one side so it does create a microclimate. I wish the weather would make up its mind!

You can add 10 photos per post, and then add additional photos in follow up comments. From my perspective more photos are great. Consider repetition. Look at how the repetition of white-flowered plants along the top of your formal rock wall gives a rhythm to that part of the bed. Right now your listed plants have one of this and two of that, and some of them aren't plants that will be happy with your growing conditions such as your hybrid tea roses. Having some plants with a year round presence that repeat throughout the garden will give it coherence, even in a garden that tends to have a lot of variety. So choose one or two plants that you will use in several spots around the bed such as the evergreen heather and Dianthus listed below. Alternatively, if you can make yourself limit the variety, plant large masses of a few kinds of plants, sort of like the mass of annuals in the lower right corner of your photo above but with perhaps a half dozen types for the entire bed. Picture a mass of bloom covering a 5' diameter mass of Dianthus or creeping Phlox. Stunning! Choose plants that suit the conditions. At one point in my life I lived in a house with a similar chunk of ledge with shallow, acid soil. I found that planting a combination of evergreen, blooming heaths (Erica) and heathers (Calluna) along with a variety of low-growing plants that are tolerant of low water and sun worked well. Some of them were thyme, perennial candytuft (Iberis), Sedum, Hens-and-chicks (Sempervirens), low growing pinks (Dianthus such as D. gratianopolitanus), and basket of gold (Aubrietta). There are some low bulbs that will do well here also, particularly some of the species tulips, crocus, and small daffodils for really early flowers. Even though the plants I used were tolerant of low water, I did need to water this area far more often than the rest of the garden because it had so little soil and it was fast-draining. Post in the Perennials Forum and the New England forum for ideas on other specific plants that work well in this type of setting. Create a bed elsewhere (perhaps along the top wall of your parking area) where you can create a bed of deep, fertile soil for plants like your roses, lilies, hydrangeas, etc. that won't do well in this bed. Celebrate the rock. Folks often pay a lot of money to create natural looking rock gardens where rock doesn't occur naturally and you have it for free! In my garden I used some very short rock walls but not many to level soil in a few spots and a few large rocks or lines of single rocks placed in conjunction with plants to do the same. Rocks will look most natural when placed partly buried. Where there was bare ledge, I didn't try to cover it up or dress it up with pots like your 1/2 barrels, I just left it bare and over time it did start growing some moss and lichens, and some of the Sempervirens and thyme crept up over the edges. I liked featuring the ledge because it's such a classic part of the New England landscape. In the planted areas, I mulched the soil between plants until it filled in to keep the soil in place, discourage weeds and help keep soil moisture more even. Keep winter interest in mind. Choose a few shrubby evergreens like the heather or evergreen perennials like the Dianthus and Iberis so that you have year round foliage to complement the rocks so your garden has winter interest. It's easy to get caught up in the flowers, but in New England we have many months of winter, and having an attractive garden view helps alleviate winter blues. On a practical note, don't rip out the grass next to your ledge garden until you have a plan and a general plant list of rock garden plants, and also have found spots for those plants you've already bought but not planted so that you don't get overwhelmed by too much bare soil. This area has potential to be a stunning show piece, and it's obvious that you have already put in a lot of work. If funds are limited which is often the case with new homeowners, several of my favorite rock garden plants can be started relatively easily from seed such as the low Dianthus and Iberis or one large pot can be divided at planting time and then redivided a year later. Often heaths and heathers can be found at big box stores as seasonal color plants, and since you have such a perfect garden spot for them (unlike almost everywhere else in the US) take advantage of that and snap up a few.