You can see in this picture my two gardening companions (actually there are three but the cat didn't make it into this photo). I have always been careful to make sure my gardens were pet/wildlife/kid friendly and could take a great deal of abuse, like a 100 pound dog traipsing through the flowers.
I have also been striving to do more mass plantings of bulbs as opposed to plopping in one here and there.
Now my two goals have collided with these mass plantings of lily bulbs I purchased at a garden show earlier this year. The ones above are a bed of about 50 Casa Blanca lilies in the Moonlight Garden. They are surrounded on two sides by the beginning of a boxwood hedge, but are completely open on the other two sides. See that lawn behind them? That is where a lot of ball playing goes on with dogs and kids. What was I thinking? It will be a miracle if these make it through the season unscathed. 
These are 50 stargazer lilies I bought at the same time (they were practically giving them away) in my backyard garden. If you look closely at the left hand side of the picture you will see my shepard's tail after he exited the bed, albiet somewhat gracefully. There is also the beginning of boxwood hedges going in here which will eventually add some protection, but until then, these lovelies are very, very vulnerable!
Plants are very vulnerable, and fragile, fleetingly so. They are going to be pressure washing our decks on the condo later this month, and I have warned them to stay away from my garden. The damage those guys can do in 4 minutes is amazing.
ReplyDeleteJen
Very nice, I am leaning towards mass planting too.
ReplyDeleteI love how the lilies look in groups. I've had to guard mine from both the dog and the kids. I ended up moving some to the front where there's less chance of them getting stepped on. Your big dogs must be very graceful :)
ReplyDeleteIt's going to smell wonderful when they all bloom!
Very hard to do gardening with doggies and kiddies but it can be done(-: I always asked my kids to be careful and they were most of the time(-: That is why I always planted more then I needed to because just incase of a oops I was covered(-: The dog is pretty easy on the plants since he is so small but he does like to dig! Enough said!(-:
ReplyDeleteThe lilies will be beautiful when they bloom(-: The large mass planting is going to be stunning! IF you lose a couple here or there it will still be o.k.(-:
Please post many, many photos when these lilies are blooming! Think of the dogs as moving garden sculptures....
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