Making the most of every square foot

11 years ago

I have this 5' wide strip next to the garage where I have been dumping most of my landscape waste for the past 10 years. The compost here is really nice. Since I am pretty much out of room to plant many more hosta in the front yard I figured I would work on that narrow strip. It could have been easier but long ago, someone poured 1/2" thick concrete most of the way back that had been buried for many years. There was also some flagstone buried along with a bunch of white rock that had been dumped.

This strip is full shade for the half up against the garage and full sun on the fence side in the summer. I had an old dog kennel frame so I figured I would make a lean-to trellis covered in welded wire fence and grow annual flowering vines on it to give me all shade underneath. I planted 25 vines. Three colors of Morning Glory and Blackeyed Susan.

I started cleaning out the area and built the vine trellis thingy yesterday. Today I planted all of the vines after sloping things the way I wanted it and putting metal flashing along the bottom of the garage to keep the water off. I laid out 32 varieties of hosta spaced for mature size. Mostly Medium, Small and Mini with a Large or two thrown in. I'll use pieces of the old thin concrete as stepping stones. Either next year or this year I will cut a gate into the green fence to plant hosta behind the garage once I fence that area(14' x 29') off from the main back yard where the five giant dogs are.

No Maple roots back here Ken! Elm roots instead. :(

Yesterday morning.

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This morning.

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Ostrich ferns around the telephone pole. They had been growing next to the garage from some scraps that I had thrown away.

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This afternoon. Front to back.

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This afternoon. Back to front.

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Varieties back to front, fence side.

St. Elmo's Fire

Azuretini

Rockets Red Glare

Appletini

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Blue Boy

Blue Maui

Chinese Sunrise

Whirlwind

Bubbatini

Waving Winds

Emerald Tiara

Alex Summers

Lakeside Tee Ki

London Fog

Amber Tiara

Surfer Girl

Peace

Temptaion

Fantasy Island

Silk Kimono

Kinakfu Otome

Abby

Waving Wuffles...I might put something special here instead of this one.