Them Bones, Them Bones, Them Winter Bones

Toni at Signature Gardens did a post yesterday that made me jump up and grab my camera!  She had posted about her garden's bones - you know, the part of the garden that's showing in winter, after the pretty fluff and cover of blooms have disappeared.  And I was curious to see what my garden looked like without its covering of color and blooms.

My garden is not as neat as hers.  I don't cut back anything until spring.  Not because it's the thing to do, but just because I'm lazy!  Yeah, you heard it here first.  Anyway, I love going around in the spring straightening things up, and figure why do it in the fall too?  Seems like extra work to me!  Well, enough of my laziness confessions.  This post is about the bones of my garden.  Ready for a tour?

The front is full of evergreens, so lots of structure here.  Although the roses add a lot more color when they're in bloom.

The side has more roses (of course!), some boxwood, and gray colored dianthus 'Firewitch', which I love.  The poor standard rose is an embarrassment, but hey - it was on sale.

Around this way is the catenary bed.  As you can see, there is a LOT more work left to do here.  It's almost overwhelming to me.  See the raised beds?  They hold roses and are my solution for how to landscape around septic tank covers.  See the blue and black covers?  I hope that eventually the plants will grow large enough so you can't see them.  In addition to a little camouflage, it still needed to provide access for maintenance.  This does both.  I've never shown this view before, and now you know why!

The main rose bed looks like a rose bed - bare in winter.  Behind the fence I have plants that will eventually grow to be an evergreen hedge.  That will give it the winter bones it needs.

Right now, though, thank goodness for irises, lavender, and dianthus!

The walking garden doesn't look too bad, as I have a lot of evergreens mixed in here.  Of course, this year's temperatures have been very mild and a lot more plants are holding their leaves than they normally would in a colder year.  The very bright green in the walkway is winter weeds!  Isn't it sad that the prettiest green of all are weeds!!!??

Another area I rarely take pictures of is here beside the crape myrtle.  It's bare, and even the holly hedge behind the hydrangeas doesn't help it much.  In the summer, this area is full of hostas.

The boxwood beds in the newly named winter garden look a bit incomplete, but I promise there's plantings inside the boxes - the plants are so small, you just can't see them yet!  A few more years will help.

Well, those are my garden's bones.  Want to show me yours?