New Garden Bed by the Mailbox

C and I spent the last two days creating a garden bed near the mailbox in the back of the house. Since there were a bunch of fantastic deals at The Home Depot, we picked up:

2 Wintercreeper Emerald Gaiety (Euonymus x fortunei)
1 Azalea Pink (Rhododendron x hybrid)
1 Azalea Delaware Valley White (Rhododendron x hybrid)
3 Hosta Patriot (Hosta x fortunei)
3 Hosta ? [it's about the same size as Patriot, but with solid green leaves]

To this selection, I added two different hostas that I had planted a year or two earlier and was able to divide one of them to get another plant and some purple bearded irises from the iris bed that needed dividing. In the center of it all, we set up the birdbath that C's mom gave us and finished the bed with some black mulch left over from an earlier project. I wanted some brown mulch because it blends into the original soil better, but C wanted black so we picked up some more black mulch at The Home Depot to fill in the bare spots. After convincing him, he said that we can do leaf mulching the following year and I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out. Supposedly, plants love it!

Although it doesn't seem like a lot of plants, I think it should fill out nicely if the plant size information is correct. I mention this because there were two widely different size specifications on the back of the Wintercreeper tags (36" tall x 36" wide and 4-5' tall x 4-5' wide), although the scientific names were the same.

Originally, I was depressed that C cleared away more branches and trees from the site than I had expected (I wanted the site to have a closed private woodland look), but when everything was put together, it didn't look as bad as I thought it would. Once I download the pictures of the new bed from the camera, I'll post them here.

This is the bed we created last year. The artemesia is a new addition from this year. I don't like how it is splitting down the middle. Next year I will stake the Russian sage so that it won't flop all over the place. May add the catmint from the front of the house too.

The other side: