More Garden? Oh Yes.

Big projects a-foot!  Well, sort of.  A couple days before the hardware was removed from my foot (now propped comfortably on a footstool), I had the help of my 13 year old helper to dig over and prep a new garden bed on the west side of the house.  It's a tricky location, getting shade until about 1030 AM and then roasting the rest of the day in the sunshine.  Plus, the wall is concrete so it gets a lot of reflected heat as well.  Great in the wintertime, but not so hot in the heat of summer.  An additional factor is that it is west-facing, so it bears the brunt of cold winter winds and hammering storms that roll in from that direction.

Hence, a hardy mix of plants.  It looks sparse for now, but each of the plants that are in there will grow to be 4-5 feet in diameter so they needed lots of spacing.  While they are tiny, it looks a tad ridiculous...but plant them closer together, and eventually, they choke out and die a sad, miserable, and likely disease-riddled death.  Not something I want to happen, so hence the sparse looking planting.  I think I'll add some spring and autumn flowering bulbs, but that will have to wait until next year/this fall, I think.

So what's in the garden for now?  Well, I had a spare Coral Drift groundcover rose, so I placed that on the sunniest, hottest corner.  I think it will fill in beautifully.  I planted two Victoria rhubarb plants, and two Strawberry Sundae peegee hydrangeas.  Both these plants are very cold hardy, and will be beautiful.  The rhubarb will also be delicious when I can start picking it in a couple of years, and it will have gorgeous red stems.  My current rhubarb plant is not doing well, sadly, and seems to be on its way out.  I think the crown got frozen and damaged, but with these two replacements I should be awash in rhubarb soon enough.

WHile I was working in the backyard, I decided to lay down a thick sheet of black plastic to kill off some grass, in preparation for a new garden bed.  (I decided to extend my current wildish herb area, too, but that's not pictured under it's thick tarp covering.)  By leaving this area to sit under plastic for the rest of the summer, through fall and winter, it will be "dead" by spring and ready to dig over or be made into a no-dig garden bed.  I haven't decided which, but I'm excited to add another garden area.  No idea what I will put in it, but it won't be lawn and I'm one step closer to only having grass paths to mow!