Viewing post #649368 by Jewell

Lynn, I love your use of rocks for boarders to your paths. Your beds look so pretty. Mulch I have found makes for great paths. Easy to change if you change your mind, with the bonus of enriching the soil.

David, your gardens are perfect. My home decorating is bohemian but had not thought about my gardening style. Here is how I attacked an almost finished section of my yard.

I started with a basic idea for a newly shaded area, looked at the traffic pattern that was there and how to work with it or change it. Then I looked at the plants I had on hand. The summer of 2012 I mulched the first dog created path. My ideas began to form.


In the fall of 2012 I started with a shady unused area of yard. The neighbors seedling fir trees had grown 50-75 feet and had totally changed the area. I'd started with cardboard and covered then area a section at a time. Then I covered the cardboard with mulch and started creating paths. I used the cardboard method creating beds and paths until the entire area was grass and weed free. As the cardboard started to decompose I started dividing and moving plants into what I conceived as beds.


Because I have dogs I used the short wire fences to keep the dogs out of the new garden beds. Here is one bed started with "found plants" February 2013 and some just terraced area along the back fence where the cardboard/mulch process wasn't yet started (same time period).


One panel at a time was placed to hide our plastic storage sheds. We bought them as pairs but only installed one at a time over several week-ends. I divided and moved plants I had on hand. Attended a couple of plant swaps and picked up a sale plant or two.


At the end of June 2013 we had to have our filberts removed because of blight. All the woodland plants from that area were incorporated into the new beds. I worked on moving plants all last summer as I had time. All the large sword ferns, autumn and tassel ferns, native ginger and hellebores came from where the filberts had shaded. The branches from the downed filberts provided borders for the new woodland beds. The gates and last panels went up about this time also hiding our garden junk.



A little over a year this is what it looks like today. The dogs a pretty well trained and most of the wire fencing is back in storage. I preferred to just lay old filbert branches across the beds to keep the dogs from running through or playing in the beds. Lost a few and gained a few plants. A lot of the moved native sword ferns, ginger and sale hostas and other plants filled in rather fast.


The area is still evolving. Have lost a few plants to disease, an unseasonably cold snap last winter and maybe just moving too late in the season lady year. No weeds except for seedlings so is fairly easy upkeep so far. By next year all the plantings should be fairly mature. I feel this area is pretty much finished.

I am still working and planning the area opened up to the sun from the removal of the big old filberts. I'll save that for another time.