Three summers ago, the city made some major changes to our street, eliminating parking, adding a biking/walking path on our side of the street, and inserting a planted strip between the new path and the road. All of this work was a major disruption to my street edge gardens plus the one between out driveway and the one of our next door neighbor. This space had many day lilies as well as other plants.

That garden had been designed and planted by the previous owners of our two houses a good many years ago considering we have owned our place for 30 years and our neighbors were living there when we moved in.

My neighbor Christine suggested that we stick to that tradition and plan to replace the garden together. I lent her several books on perennials, but, in the end, suggested that we get plants from "Plant Dane," a county program which encourages planting native species and rain gardens. The plants are reasonably priced with a list, on line, that includes color, height, season of bloom and light requirements. They are all sold in groups of four.

Christine and I sat down together in January, decided what to plant, and split the cost.

When I picked up the plants we set a Sunday afternoon time to get them in the ground. We laid the plants out, basically by height, and started planting. It was hot! We took a couple of extended water breaks and finally got the job done.

When we finished, Christine, bless her heart, suggested cold martinis. She went inside and came out with two frosted classes. We sat in the shade on the bench in front of our house, relaxed, cooled off, and enjoyed our drinks. To be fair, I am not a fan of martinis, but in that moment is was just the right thing. I could become a fan!

So how did the garden turn out? I think that everything survived the first year in spite of some delivery truck running over the corner of the garden. Now this is the second year. Everything is TALL! With all of this rain and heat, the area looks a bit like a jungle. So much for all of our careful planning and spacing. However it is colorful and the bees and other insects seem to be appreciative.

It is definitely not the look that we had in mind, but we will keep it.