Specialty Gardening: Suburban Right Angles to Cottage Garden - Year1 Planning, 1 by poolrunning

poolrunning wrote:
Hopefully, involving the kids on the block will have made a difference.

Finished getting the bulb garden done today. Over the two days I worked on it, mostly on my own, I emptied fourteen 40-lb bags of topsoil, and I placed about 35 bricks around it today. Neighbor/friend Portia also helped me supervise the (paid) neighborhood Kid Crew to finish re-outlining the giant mulch ring around the grand old maple, in white rock. Well, it will be whoite again after some rain and snow wash it. ;-)

The kids enjoyed emptying the last two bags of topsoil onto the personally-buried bulbs; the lightest of them was invited to walk gently on the whole, to compact it a bit. I'll add more topsoil in Feb. once it settles. They're still trying to figure out why I would plant bulbs, when I know I won't be here in April to see them come up. No matter; when I'm here in May, I can set out annuals above the bulbs. If I did it right, they'll greet us some April after we retire to here. Portia promises pix. I hope the kids will enjoy seeing "their" garden come up.

We also covered the scar where a bush was torn out in the side yard, using an old rip-stop tarp to prevent any more new growth in the spring; it's weighted down with buckets full of more rock to use elsewhere next year. There's just enough rock to cover a wide ring outside the front door for song circle chairs to sit upon, making the old (straight) concrete walk up to the door appear to blow out into curves. I'll add a little pea gravel on top, to variegate the color and blend the ring with the concrete color. inside the ring, some ground cover-- vinca?

Eventually, a bluestone path will branch off from it into the children's garden, for which this new bulb bed furnishes a rounded corner. The kids gathered up all the bluestone, and there's just enough for where I want it next year.

In the pix below, note that dirty white rock has replaced the black trash bin shown upthread-- the base for my wishing well, which the kids are eager to patronize already. I better re-build it with them before they get too old and too cool to wish! ;-) The bricks at that end will come out when I place the wishing well, and then outline the well. The rocks and bricks are holding the soil in place nicely; thanks to garden center maven Judy's advice, the grape hyacinth should come up just against the wishing well, for contrast.

~S~