May 5, 2015

Reclaiming a Garden

I forgot to take a proper "before" picture, but here's what the bed looked like two years ago. As you can well imagine, two years of benign neglect did not improve matters. Picture a tangled, verdant bed, 18 inch grasses and weeds swaying in the breeze. Engulfed by the thriving weeds, several clumps of lilies were slowly asphyxiating.

Without a clue as to the root structure of lilies, I gamely dug up the clumps and transplanted them to a small bed by the street. (They haven't managed to keel over in the past few days, so perhaps they survived the migration.) Then the Hubs fired up the weed whacker and went to town on the bed.
Here's where my stockpiling of potentially useful materials comes in handy. Hello Ikea flat packs. You made wonderful gardening fodder.
Over the cardboard, we spread a thick layer of decomposing leaves. Again, I've been saving the leaves for this express purpose. They've been cooking for the past year and a half under a light cotton tarp. I'm hoping the advanced state of decomposition of the leaves will speed things along and allow me to plant bulbs in this bed come autumn.
In one corner of the bed is this clump of flowers that I asked the Hubs not to touch with the weed eater. I can't remember what they are. My pictures from last year show them in this same state of growth, but not in bloom. Any ideas? Could they be black-eyed Susans or daisies?

1 comment:

  1. Wow that bed is looking great! What a great top layer for the cardboard those leaves are. With the rest of spring and summer, I think you'll be good to go with your bulbs in autumn :) As for the mystery plant... I'm not sure but those leave don't look like daisy leaves. Mind you, our daisies could differ from your daisies. The daisy bushes around here have a darker, thicker and more waxy leaf... perhaps they have adapted to our dry Aussie conditions? Whatever it is, it sure looks healthy.

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