Flowerbed Border, Part 1

I've never quite been satisfied with the border along the flowerbed.  It is about 75' long with 2 paths interupting it.  I've tried several plants there. 

The original attempt was Blue Fescue.  That was a real horror story!  The local nursery wanted $5 per plant ($375!), so I ordered 100 small ones online for $100.  They arrived rotted and wet.  I won't go into all the gory details (maybe I will in a future post), but Kelly Nurseries dragged me along for almost a year before I gave up on getting a replacement or refund.  Suffice it to say I will never do business with them again.

After that, I tried Bergenia. 

They died out after a couple of years.  Then I tried Campanula.  For whatever reason, I can't get them to thrive here.  After that, I planted annual Marigolds.  They looked nice, but I wanted perennials so that I wouldn't have to keep relanting every year.  Though I will say that the border is certainly the most convenient place to plant annuals.

So I tried Gaillardia (Blanket Flower).  Nice plant, but not for a border.  They have a habit of wandering a bit each year.  I went back to annuals. The last years I planted Marigolds again, but with tulips between them for some Spring color.  This year it was red Salvias.  Lovely plant, but too tall for the front border.  The tulips were mostly gone this Spring.

Tulips don't last here and I wanted to get back to perennials.  But perennials don't bloom for very long and the border needs to show up to serve its purpose.  Well, this Spring I found Blue Fescue seeds and planted 2 flats (72) of them.  They sprouted well enough, and I set the flats out by the hose stand for easy watering.  Well, one thing leads to another and they were still sitting in the flats last week.

I decided to plant them once the Salvias died (which finally happened last week - we are having an unusually warm November). 

The other thing that fits here is that I've been planting crocuses in the lawn for years.  It looks great, but it means I shouldn't mow the lawn until the leaves die back, which is a real pain with the fast growing turf fescue grass I have.  So I end up mowing the lawn before the crocuses are ready, and they slowly fade away.

So my plan was to plant the whole border with crocuses and blue fescue.  I know crocuses do well here if left alone, and the Blue Fescue seedlings seem pretty tough survivors.  I pulled the dead Salvias up few days ago and set to work.

Next:  The Work