Digging in the Dirt

Today was my day off, and one look at the thermometer showed it would be a good morning for planting the numerous perennials I've been acquiring and (temporarily) leaving in the driveway. I dashed out when it was still 67 degrees F, and began work on the new garden bed in the front lawn. The sun hadn't moved to this part of the property yet, so I was able to cut, dig and remove the majority of the grass* in the shade. (*I don't really have nice grass, instead I have mostly weeds -- crab grass everywhere. In an effort to eventually banish the lawn from the front property, my husband and I have given up on trying to correct the problem. Your time is limited, crab grass.)

I wanted to create a semicircle bed at the onset, but the form got more amoeba-like as I went along. Halfway through I realized I could successfully make a butterfly-shaped bed, and proceeded to fine tune the edges to do so. I finished digging up the turf just as the sun was beginning to shine on the area. A trip to the back compost pile resulted in a full wheelbarrow of dirt, which I applied to the top.


Now was the fun part! The plants! I planted four echinaceas, Sunrise, Raspberry Truffle, and two others toward the middle. In each of the "lower wings," I planted a David Austin rose (a type of rose I've been wanting to include for a long time now and got on sale at the garden center a couple of weeks ago): Pat Austin in the left and Sir John Betjeman in the right. I dotted the back part with Lavender Provence (three plants). And the top part of the "wings" were laid out with a Gaura Whirling Butterflies (far left) a cransebill geranium (center) and a new shasta daisy (far right).

Right now the garden looks like a green jumble, but I think next summer this bed will look pretty nice! After planting, I went back around with the edger to solidify the border, watered, and then called it a day.