The area called for an expansion of the border along the side of the garden.
However, I'm not one for hard labor. Especially not in Houston... in summer.... so this past weekend, I you might be surprised to hear that I spent part of the Labor Day weekend lugging large rocks around the garden and laying them artfully in the shape of a new border.
Actually it wasn't that bad. The weather was a smidgeon coolor and less humid (it's a relative thing...) And I only carried one stone at a time from my car on the driveway, round to the back fence and placed the stone on the ground.
Where I saved myself from hard labor was in that fact that I didn't do any digging at all. Both jasmines are already planted so I laid out newspaper several sheets thick, watered it down ...
... and then covered it with mulch...
Rinse and repeat...
I love the finished effect as you walk up the side of the house to the back garden. And next year, when the grass has all died off under the paper and mulch I'll be able to do more planting in the bed.
Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.
7 comments:
I love the stone border! Looks good!
Thanks meemsnyc - I'm happy with how it turned out too :-)
That stone boarder looks so beautiful! The edge like this really gives the immediate effect to the garden, make the bed looks neat and well defined.
I am the fan of the stones in the garden, only they are quite expensive, at least in my neck of the wood. I don't have much patience to wait for the grass die down under the mulch. I always remove all the grasses, so that I can use the new bed to plant right away. The downside is later on, the grass from the left over roots or seeds will grow from the bed. But it is not a lot, and I usually yank them out right away.
Moving stones around is hard work. I can attest to that and very sweaty work at this time of the year. The bed looks very attractive. Well worth the effort.
Hi, Jayne,
I make flower beds like this all the time ... here they call it "lasagna gardening" because it is made in layers like a lasagna. Yours looks great.
Pam
I love it! I haven't been patient enough for the lasagna method in the past, but if I do any expanding, I may try it. One of the reasons I haven't is because my book says to bring it up 18 inches. How high do you do it?
Mine is about three inches of mulch Sue. I have read where you can put your newspaper down and then put a layer of soil on top, and then mulch -- that's probably where they're getting to 18 inches. You could plant in that immediately. I won't really be able to do anything with mine until next year. It's more to give "the appearance" of a border right now. But once the grass has died off and started to compost, I can dig it all in, add some soil amendments, do my planting and re-mulch it.
Post a Comment