A gutter box planting

I walked down Haywood Street in West Asheville a couple of times today and yesterday, while getting my car window shield replaced (a chip morphed into a long crack on either side).

A high point were these "gutter" plantings, in ordinary galvanized gutters, filled with attractive sedums.

In the front, the owners had faced the gutters with brick. On the side, they were just suspended like miniature window boxes.

sedums in a window gutter

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Sedums at Toronto Botanical Garden

These were delightful mixes of sedums and their friends in carefully planted boxes along the path.

They're largely the sort that need to be brought in over winter;  glorious, never the less!

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Sedums and sedum mats

I've so enjoyed our sedum bed in the mountains as it's provided all-season interest for almost 4 years. And it continues to do so.

But the combination of a cool, and very wet summer, with an extremely cold winter left me with some gaps to fill.  A non-sedum, Irish moss (Sagina subulata), was the most visible hit from the cold winter, so I've replanted the surviving bits and tidied it up (actually, it had gotten to be a bit too expansive, so this wasn't a bad thing).

Some of the sedums on the lower side, however, seem like they've totally vanished. 

So, I was delighted (and couldn't resist buying) these cool mixed sedum mats (produced by Drop and Grow, according to the label).  I don't know anything about their company or the process, but I was entranced by them at the local big box store.

Sedum mat

Now, of course the S. angelina is a bit assertive, but the mix is quite nice.

I'm planning to plug in bits in the sedum bed, but also do some new plantings at the edge of the retaining wall in the piedmont, too.

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Garden vignettes

At this time of the year, I'm concentrating on harvesting (and preserving) vegetables, sowing seeds for fall veggies, worrying about getting the rest of the garden in shape (yikes! it's a lot of work!) and enjoying the unexpected pleasures of the garden.

Here are a few images that I enjoyed this morning in the mountains.

Geraniums, Aquilegium, and stones

Hypericum fruits and Helenium flowers

Sedum bed, Sept. 2, 2012

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