Bonnie, is the soil in your area made of clay or sand? I have clay--- hard pack clay. That was the first thing I had to deal with when I started my garden beds. I did a variety of things to get going. One might say I was obsessed. I tried all the techniques to set up new beds in a hurry. I came away knowing for certain, that the double digging technique is a necessary first step - one that was advocated to by Geoff Hamilton (a garden great). These are my experiences so far.... With the front yard, I somewhat cheated and hired a landscaper to install stone pavings for the walkway. In this case I had him remove all the lawn grass and topdress it with triple mix topsoil. I had not instructed him to rototill it into the ground (but on hindsight I should have). I took several shortcuts with this job because I had several potted plants that needed to go into the ground. Already I was delayed by more than a month in planting the perennials. So instead of tilling all the topsoil into the hardpack clay layer, I spot tilled it. whereever I planned to place my perennials I dug a big enough hole and basically tilled the topdressing, manure, bonemeal into the area. Unfortunately this front bed had a slope and so several bouts rainy weather resulted with soil erosion. I was constantly having to clean the sidewalks. So to remedy the problem, I addressed the area which was most vulnerable and installed a plastic lawn edger, slightly raised to prevent the water from entering the beds. Weedcloth was added to keep topsoil in place. Horizontal trenches throughout the bed to slow the flow of water. I used coconut coir to help slow water and act as mulch too. I then planted perennials with deep root capabilites to help break the flow and also to help hold the soil. Only then did I start planting the annuals to fill out the empty spaces. I would say, this front yard bed is now very pleasing. The backyard is another dilemma. Most recent as of today. I created 4 garden beds there. One by the backfence. Here I piled on upturned grass sods which were taken from other bed site. I left the grass here to rot and mixed it with topsoil and compost. It's largely made of clay and broken down with compost. At first it was a really ugly looking pile but now that the sods have broken down, planted with shade lovign plants, the area looks great and thriving The bed by the side of the fence, I dug the sod (used in the backfence bed) and clay out entirely and filled it with compost, topsoil, rotted manure. I used a newspaper layer to kill off the remaining grass. _-- result -- NOT TOO GOOD. Plants were stunted. It might as well be Sahara desert located in the middle of a jungle. The bed that lies next to this bed, was double dug. I got lazy and simply left much of hte clay in place, broke it up and added my topsoil, compost, manure nd builder's sand mix. The results were great. These 2 beds are constantly being affected by water that is coming from my neighbors yard and this is the problem I am now facing. I may need to raise the beds instead and somehow try to see what I can do to prevent the neighbor's water from flooding my area. Despite that, the bed with the 50%clay matter & 50% organic matter works wonderfully, while the other bed with 95% organic matter is not. Plants have suffered. Almost no earthworms in that area which means something is definitely not healthy about it. I can only speculate that there are some trace nutrients I wasn't able to address when putting in the topsoil - or perhaps that the topsoil is of poor quality. Or that the rain managed to wash away any trace nutrients. So the lesson in my story... Clay is good and double digging continues to be my preferred technique. Use topsoil from good garden centres, don't cheapen on it.

I have a whole bed of them on the north side of my shop. The pretty much stay there. There is a pathway between their bed and the rest. True, They do not get much moisture so seeding is rare. I like it when it does . I move them to where I want them. FREE plants. They are drought tolerant (This is Central Texas hill top shade) but perform better on wet years. They died in thew Great Drought of 2011 but came back from seed like most of my unwatered garden. I like how they proliferate in the wild on large areas of the stream banks. Beautiful in mass when they have seed in the shafted light of oak trees.. I wonder if the drought ,heat and cold hardiness is a variable quality in the regional populations. I got my seed from the population need by from a stream that goes dry for years sometimes. If I was establishing a population in Burlington Vermont, I would get my seed from afar north as possible. I never buy prairie grasses from Prairie Moon Nursery in Minnesota, even though they are tempting. It might as well be a different country. To cold, too wet and that have dirt feet thick. (@Caroline O) As a landscape designer, you are probably not growing from seed unless you are doing or having someone do contract growing for you.

There isn't much first aid, other than tying them up after the fact. According to Traci DiSabato-Aust, author of The Well Tended Perennial Garden, this resembles a lynching. Consider growing them through supports which are in place before they start growing. Next year, cut some properly sized and shaped pieces of remesh, and anchor it over the plants with rebar. They'll grow up through the remesh, and hide it with their foliage, while obtaining the needed support. I have Chasmanthium growing in every sun condition from full sun to mostly shade, and all of them need support except those under thick-canopied trees. They seem to benefit from the protection from soaking rains.

You are so blessed to have such a pile of great stuff on hand! We had to construct our hugelkultur / raised beds by swiping Christmas trees from neighborhood trash, chopping off branches, then lining the beds with the pieces, weeds, spoiled hay bales, a few limbs we saved from neighbor's trees that were shading our property, etc. (We have no trees. Yet.) Anything helps. When we found leaves (swiped from neighbors, of course), we just piled them into the raised beds throughout the year, tossing a few shovelfuls of compost or soil onto them to help with break down. Our new (free!) beds are overflowing with healthy plants. Newly interested neighbors are now actually giving us their grass clippings, etc.! (Promises of homegrown tomatoes is a wonderful encourager.) From the picture, it looks like you have woods nearby. Try scrounging a FEW buckets of leaf mold, forest soil, etc., to further encourage beneficial soil bacterial stimulation. And, there's always those clueless neighbors who graciously bag their goodies for you....