Our new garden spot - Long with photos
I thought some of you might be interested in our backyard garden project. It's too early to plant anything we grow, so hubby and I have been amusing ourselves by growing in the greenhouse, and sprucing up the 1/3 of the yard we decided to landscape last year. It started as a big patch of bindweed...impossible to safely kill with the dogs, and constantly trying to take over more lawn (we did kill some of it out last year just by not watering that area). So we started digging the outline of a dry riverbed last summer:
We decided that just rocks all the way through would be too hot (that part of the yard bakes in the sun all day), so we decided to edge it with rocks for the riverbed "look" and plant creeping thyme all down the bed for a "River of Thyme". So we spread out landscaping fabric over the whole thing, and put a soil mix in the bed from a local landscaping company. That was also when we decided to buy the little 6x8 greenhouse, and site it to look like a little "house" at the top of the "river".
Then we had a couple tons (literally) of rock delivered, and we edged the riverbed one rock at a time. Talk about some good exercise (thank goodness for garden carts)! We also put landscaping fabric over the whole area off the right "bank" to the neighbor's fence, and spread out a thick layer of mulch to cover the whole thing (our plan being to smother all the bindweed throughout the fall/winter, and prevent it from coming up this spring).
So last weekend, we put a fence up to keep the dogs out of that area, since we'll be planting the thyme in the river, and perennials in the mulched area as well as the grassy area on the left side of the "banks" this spring/summer and I didn't want all the baby plants getting uprooted or smashed by big doggie paws. I'll plant morning glories, moon flowers and clematis to climb the fence, and my hot peppers will be in pots all along the fence line as well. Our raised veggie bed is closer to the house (within the fenced area - the leftover fencing roll is leaning on it in the lower part of the photo below) and I'll have a spot near the patio for my herb garden as well. We'll add another raised veggie bed this spring. We moved the original veggie bed last weekend when we put in the fence, so it would get more sun this year.
This is what we have now (ignore the blue pool...we've been thinking about what to plant in that circular area at the end of our "river", and were considering sand or a bog at one point - it will probably end up as annuals though).
Hubby is going to build a bridge over the river about half way up where it curves out, and that's where the garden gate is located as well. I may put an arch over the gate for big clematis or climbing roses to grow over. All that grass to the left of the "river" along the fence line will be dug up, and that whole area mulched and planted right up to the rocks, and along the fence line, with a stepping stone path running through the middle. All the grass/dirt closer to the house (bottom of the photo) around the raised veggie beds will be covered and mulched too (it's very rocky, and would be nearly impossible to plant in, but mulch will look very nice around the raised beds & pots). I'm excited to see how it will look later this summer, when we get things planted out there.
So that's our latest gardening project - anyone want to share thiers? I'd love to read about/see what others are doing in our zones...
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billie_ladybug
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