phlox subulata...and strawberry like the rocks and the south facing slope

Lori:

I like the very light blue flower! Do they go dormant in Winter?

They seem to do best when the snow is deepest...but these hardy little flowers also grow in my front garden at the edge of the sidewalk where they receive a dose of road salt with the melt water every spring...Each spring, on the first nice warm day...I take the garden hose and de-salt all my plants that grow next to the sidewalk! These finish blooming in July and may bloom again in October...but most often they begin dormancy in November when the first killing frosts arrive. ..and when the deciduous trees lose their leaves I don't rake them up but pad them down...with a little topsoil to hold them in place like a nice warm blanket. The leaf mulch and the deep snow protects them through the bitter cold months. ...the hardest time for them is April! I usually remove the leaves and mulch them up as a soil amendment at that time...and the ambient temps can be cruel.. I have had plants survive the terrible cold only to be killed by the dry cold winds of April!. Who can control the weather, aye?

Lori:

Wow! That sounds like a lot of work. You have a tremendous amount of dedication to your plants...like most of us.

I suppose it does seem so, D1, but to me it is not an onerous task...nature does all the timing I just contribute a little help in spring and fall...I don't see myself as the star in my garden...I am a "walk on" at best! That's the way I choose to garden...and part of the reason why I don't have a greenhouse anymore. I got a little too obsessed. The hardest lesson I learned was to step back...so much that happens in the garden will happen whether we are there fussing or not...so my experiment was a "do your own thing" flower bed... I let nature rule for two whole seasons and I was thrilled with the result...(I started with native species and those which some would call "invasive" and found that they sort themselves out amazingly well!) That's part of the reason I love the plant bulbs and corms and rhizomes... I can have those "exotics" like the icing on the cake.