Another Bed....

This is the bed I was referring to in the previous post. It borders another fence line, and you can see that the path had yet to be created. More digging, you got to love it! Again the bed is pictured after the planting. The plantings are hard to make out but we've got an autumn clematis vine, holly hocks (double flower heads, cause they were prettier to me back then), silver mound, mums, and a couple of hybrid tea roses, plus- a climbing rose Joseph's Coat. Near the center is a french blue lilac bush. It is the first bed you see as you enter the yard. The little reading angel, a gift from my mother-in-law add some needed drama!

What I call "anybody can grow" yellow mums do very well in this bed. It is the driest bed in the yard, because of its sun exposure and grade. Mums should be cut back by the fourth of July or when they get unusually tall. Don't throw away what you cut. Slightly peel back the ends to expose a little of the soft tissue, and place in potting soil. Keep moist and within a 2-3 weeks you've got more mums to plant. It works like a charm!

The lilac bush has done well some years, but this year I'm a little concerned that it's seen its last spring. It blossomed but it is failing to get green! The late freeze and hot temps have created havoc for it. My friend has suggested we top it off and amend the soil, but everything else currently in the bed is flourishing. Lesson #2: Sometimes no matter what you do somethings can't be saved!

Beginning with the Flower Beds...

All the sod was removed from the flower beds. The bed against the back fence was cleared of the dying red twig dog woods. The orange prolific day lilies were thinned. It wasn't easy work that's for sure. My husband did most of the removal, I just throw the pieces into a wheel barrow for transport. The sod was piled behind the shed, upside down and by the next summer it turned into a nice compost pile! What we should have done was rent a sod cutter, but novices don't know think about these things. All that we thought about was getting it gone and shovels and hands were the tools at hand! Lesson #1 is rent a sod cutter to save your back and hands.

We didn't take pictures of our hard work but you can see the rear of our yard with the initial plantings. Three beds are missing from the photo. Two beds were placed by the patio behind the house and the final one is on the far right looking above the shed. All the beds visible in the photo were cleared an planted in the mid spring of 2001.

The Garden Gate After...

We thought this would look more inviting! We are getting a little ahead of our selves. We completed the back yard before we tackled the front entrance into the garden. Some day we will replace the asphalt walkway with pavers, but that's for another day, year or life time! The sedum and bishop's weed against the garage wall originally bordered the walkway. Over time we have added a variety of ferns that include, autumn fern, christmas fern and maiden fern. The outer bed is lined with black eyed susans, lupine, day lilies, shasta daisies, white phlox. The gate itself is surrounded by silver leaf vine, clematis, even rose of sharon, and in the far corner of the fence you can find comfrey(great natural compost)!

The Garden Gate before...

This is a view of the gated entrance of our garden. You can be honest, does this want to make you journey back and discover what's there? We didn't think so ....

Pictures as promised...

As noted in the previous thread the pathway is visible and further extended around the sun porch forking into another path to the new shed.

Also visible is a rock bed that became a small water feature. Everything about our garden is predicated on the senses; sight, sound and smell. The water feature offered us a soothing sound as we enjoyed a meal or relaxed with a good book.

Rest assured this did not happen in a blink of an eye. It took a better part of month to clean out the sod and create the flower beds. At times it seemed like we'd never get the foundation of our garden done. It was a process that involved creating visual aesthetics coupled with practicality and frugality. How did it look? What else did we need to do to make our life in the garden easier? Most importantly, how do we get the best bang for our buck? (Sorry about the cliches but they work.)

Back to the Patio...

The small square blue stone patio was pulled up. We dug out any sod left over to the far right corner of the house. Obviously cutting a curved edge. We reused the blue stone placing them randomly and added gravel fill to top it off! We used the gravel because it was monochromatic to the blue stone, yet offered a textural difference that was engaging to the eye, although it was a little rough on bare feet! It was also inexpensive. We brought in about 3 yards of it by the time it was over. We brought the gravel from the front yard to the back in 5 gallon pails and dump the gravel and then spread it with a wide rake. It was back breaking work but the results more than pleased us. The gravel eventually extended into a path way from the downspout and wrapped around the sun porch to our garden gate. More pictures to follow!