My first day of planting the roof garden

I've been procrastinating about planting anything in the roof garden, even though I'm very excited about it.  The problem is that I really want to put in the larger plants first, to see how much space they'll take up and how they look in 3D before putting in the small plants in front of them, but everything is being shipped from all over the country and the nurseries are spreading out the shipping, (despite the fact that all the plants were ordered within 48 hours of each other).  Today a group of larger plants arrived, so I decided to dig in.  The absurdly hot weather we had the past 2 days (95 degrees on Monday!) also kick-started me because everything is drooping.  The white lavender in particular seems inconsolable despite my best attempts to water abundantly.  Hang in there guys!

This afternoon was much cooler and overcast, which they say is perfect planting weather from the plants' point of view.  I worked for about an hour and a half before getting cold and hungry and coming in for dinner.  In that time, I planted a few of the plants I've blogged about previously.  The Japanese Hydrangea Vine 'Moonlight' went in first.  When it arrived in the mail it was so puny I couldn't believe it.  It was in one of those tiny seedling cell containers.  Disappointing, but at least it's in the ground and maybe it's a very fast grower.  I also planted the Sweet Autumn Clematis, bought on Monday from a local nursery, which is a decent size.  I planted the White Flowering Chocolate Vine which came in the mail today, also in one of those pathetic seedling cells.  The leaves are really pretty - the 8 or 10 that it has!  I planted the three Calycanthus x Venus (Sweetshrub) that arrived today.  They're small, but not laughably so.  I planted 4 pots-worth of a bearded iris named "Immortality" that I bought at another local nursery.  This is what it's supposed to look like:

I put them all together in a clump, in the hope of making them look at bit more substantial.  Another relatively big plant I put in today is the honeysuckle 'Graham Thomas', which I debated buying and ultimately went for:

I'm glad I did, just to have something that isn't a midget.

More planting for me tomorrow....