Details, Details...

 

 Hose guard attempt: Pelargonium in a pot.   Idea good, and it works, the pot being heavy, but the execution is sloppy:  the stake, the irrigation flags, the piece of metal randomly stuck in the ground...

Attention to small details makes a garden all the better.  I've been working on details lately.  As a beginning gardener, just getting a plant to grow and thrive was my biggest thrill--but we gardeners always want more, don't we?  More beauty, more...

Color coordination that brings out the best in each plant, that shows them at their best.  

 Not coordinated with anything, but looking its best anyway:  Clematis 'Bourbon'

Blue, white, golden coordination: 

Pink and orange?  Yes indeedy!

Hot pink, deep burgundy and green:

Black, red, and green:

Blue and gold:

Some small area details:  the mailbox bed got some rehab last year but needed more.  The plants chosen are sturdy, heat loving plants:  Gaillardias, Coreopsis, a recovered Aloe aculeata that had spent time in a 'recovery' planter, and some annual Marigolds to fill spaces while other plants grow.  

Looking uphill at the area: 

And downhill at the same area:

The Dicliptera suberecta, planted last year, is about to flower for the first time.  Also planted last year, the Teucrium appears to be thriving in a hot, very dry spot:

The Dicliptera is reported to be a Hummingbird favorite.  Looking forward to see if it proves to be so here:

This area across from the pond needed work.  I'd stuck in some Senecio serpens I couldn't bring myself to throw out, and it thrived, but...thought it was time to see if I could do better.

The Senecio came out in one large sheet:

Hmm...what will work here?  The red Gaillardia ('Spintop Mariachi Red Sky')--no, the colors were not right with pinks surrounding it.   Coreopsis--no, not there...

I liked the Teucrium, which when it flowers, reads lavender to the eye--good with all  the pinks:

I planted the Teucrium and moved in a pink Gerbera that was Not Happy in another location.  More annual marigolds as filler until the Teucrium gets going and the Gerbera recovers:

This next area:  another lily that needed gilding.  I added a Gaillardia and moved an "Angel" Pelargonium to empty places 

 The Cosmos seedlings are doing much better than my first attempt with them last year.  I started planting them out--they're all pinched back hopefully to branch better than last year's.   

Handy plants--they can be slipped into small empty spots--they will grow tall and vertical without disturbing surrounding plants, and they can use the surrounding plants as support, too. 

A detail I tried last year seems to be working:  variegated Farfugium foliage to brighten a shaded corner by the 'Oshio Bene' Acer palmatum:

 

So, that's it for this post.  I still need to pull those random bits out from next to the Pelargonium hose guide.  A garden is never finished.