Thanks for adding your suggestions, Renee! And gypsy, I think your garden is lovely, don't sell yourself short! And thank you Renee for your kind comments. It is such a pretty, pretty area of our yard, and my husband is on board for it to stay formal. And yes, these rose trees are breathtaking. Every year the perform better and better. They are nearly 8 feet in diameter right now . We're going to have to re-stake them. Again. With something really massive, lol! House is sort of a beige with medium brown trim. Sounds ugly, but it is sort ofTuscan in its style, and it's a nice neutral color. Here's an old photo of the house (much more landscaping and fruit trees, now). My formal garden area is on the left side of the house: Colors for the flowering plants. Thinking purple (have some variegated lavender colored iris that will stay, just need to be dug up and repositioned), pink and white. And some silver foliage and green foliage. The lavender I was thinking of using is Lavandula angustifolia 'Thumbelina Leigh'. Very nice, well behaved, very rich green foliage and deep blue purple flower heads. Plus, it is very fragrant. I have found this to be one of the very best lavenders for small spaces, just has so many great qualities. I was also thinking of maybe using some Dianthus? I found these 'Super Trouper' in a fuschia pink, which I think would be a nice color accent. Foliage is silvery: White Meidiland roses would be great. Or some white rose. I have a lone 'Glamis Castle' that looks gorgeous below the 'Red Fairy' tree rose. So, yes, white roses would be very pretty. I'd love to have any DA rose, so I might try to mix and match pink, purple and white DA's in the middle of the triangles. For the shady areas, I could go with a white Kalanchoe, or a white begonia with the Hellebores. The shady area is much more difficult to plant. Patty S. This post was edited by hoosierquilt on Mon, May 20, 13 at 18:44

aimeekitty, I would like clarify that you will need to create a hill for your lavenders. Don't dig a hole in a clay based ground - that's like a well in clay soil, - the water won't drain out. Adding compost won't help either. It would be like a well with wet compost in it. The idea is to create a 'volcano' and plant the lavenders at the very top. Water can then drain out safely. Also, unless you have well composted chicken manure, don't use this product. It's very hot for plants. A safer composted manure is cow or sheep poo. In fact, my many lavenders enjoy an addition of compost, bone meal and only a hint of composted manure and that's it. I don't do much more. I have very heavy clay soil too BTW. It's very easy to fix. Just break it up with a shovel and sprinkle compost in between cracks and eventually it will help break the clay apart. It's a lucky thing to have clay based soil. Clay actually contains a lot of nutrients plants need. The only problem is because of it's consistency, plants can't get access to those nutrients. So adding compost helps in this. One other thing you can use to aid your ailing plants. Add MYKE which helps roots access the nutrients. I can say with confidence that this isn't a natural die back. I see this when there's root damage.

Gunnera and darmera are really similar, and I've tried them both - I like plants with big dramatic foliage. I don't have a wetland, my yard is a small in-town lot (1/3 acre) but I dug out a small low spot in a shady border in hopes of providing the kind of area bog plants would tolerate. Maybe next time I've got energy to spare I'll re-dig it and line it with plastic - probably would have to remove about 2 feet of soil for that to work well, so to be honest I probably won't ever find the time. There are 2 awesome clumps of gunnera, about 6' tall, in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. They're growing in standing water, which is how I got the idea for my little wallow. I thought I had a photo of them, but I can't seem to find it.

I think this is the first time I've seen this thread and your garden. You have a wonderful eye for gardening and photos. I think Monet would have liked to paint awhile in your garden. The picture of borage might be one of my favorites, and pond shots with all the textures and colors. Also the rain spotted Munstead Wood. The blueberry leaves in fall. All really a feast for the eyes.