Mailbox Garden in the Spring

When I planted the mailbox garden in the fall, it was so late I was worried the plants wouldn't have time to develop their roots. Everything sort of wilted and died back, like plants do in the fall. I couldn't tell if the transplants worked or not. This spring though, everything came back - it's quite lovely!

The butterfly bush, the two anemones, the hosta, the echinachea, and the two autumn sedums all came back. The anenomes  and the hosta were broken off of existing plants from other parts of the garden. The butterfly bush was a gift, the echinachea and autumn sedums were purchased for the garden but I had to temporarily plant them elsewhere in the yard to keep them alive.

This is what it looked like in the Fall - questionable at best:

And now again in the Spring:

A few weeks ago I planted the orange butterfly weed in here too, though it's tiny and new. Everything is small right now, so the plants look like they are spaced far apart, but by Summer this will look fuller and in a few years it will be very full. In the meantime to add some color I planted a couple pansies (for the spring) and a couple of dahlia bulbs (for summer).

The bed is freshly mulched too - mulch makes such a difference in making everything look nice.