Northeast Gardening: Garden Projects #14, 3 by bbrookrd

bbrookrd wrote:
RosemaryK. You are so right about our slacker bed. It was in an uncleared area of our property which took me about 3 years to finally get dug out to even begin to plant. I was a sorry slacker and it looked horrible for so long, just big piles of brambles, grass and most of the unwanted native shrubs. Actually I began the project about the same time I joined Dave's in 2006 and remember posting the name as a joke as to my latest project that seemed to be going no where. I was sort of embarrassed by especially people on this forum to get it done.

I posted this in July 2008

Quoting:I have been working on a project for 3 years. It was dubbed "The Slacker Bed" as I was so slow getting it done. Now as of today, it is nearly ready to really plant as I envisioned it. But too hot now. So that will happen this fall and next spring. I have some great plants coming from some coops. Peonies, iris, narcissus and minor bulbs that are not favorites of the deer and rabbits.

Here is a collage that shows the work. The first is a shot of the area that was a big patch of bramble and weeds and tons of poison ivy until I brush cut it. I did save some nice native/indigenous plants from the tangle. I then dug a couple of crude beds in part of the newly cleared area and then ran a deer fence between them with some old nasty metal posts. I added odds and ends and narcissus to them and some shrubs for structure. We than had a carpenter build a partial fence and gate to attach to the house in 2007. Then this month we had the fence extended as originally planned, but not in the budget last year. I wish we could add 60 more feet, but the visuals will change when there is the wall of plants and shrubs hiding the plastic deer fence. DH and I had to do a great deal to change the contour of the land to allow a nice entrance into the fenced garden. We moved tons of dirt by hand, of course, we have a lot of grass to plant in the fall. So still a work in progress, but when is a garden ever done? Never. Patti