Upper East Side

Lilies waiting to open...

This is a garden I designed in 2001: my first. Lots of crabapple trees and shrubs, lots of learning curves; it's bitterly cold in the winter: Arctic. Plants in the face of the winds from the west bit the dust. First boxwood, then Rosa rugosas. I'll be switching the western hedge (round the corner) from rugosas to spirea, which you can see on the right, with the pinkish flowers about to open. Often boring and suburban, it can be graceful if not abused (like most of us, too). The lilies will pop in a couple of weeks, and right now the catnip is in full bloom. The roses that did and do work, and which will open soon, are my favourite David Austin hybrid, Abraham Derby: repeat bloomers with a delicious scent.