Specialty Gardening: Native Prairie Garden, 1 by toofewanimals

toofewanimals wrote:
semper, very pretty roadside garden. I was going to ask you if you have problems with people walking on the garden when they get in and out of the car, but it looks like GoNative beat me too it.

I typed this whole paragraph the other day and then deleted it since it wasn't about a "native' roadside garden. But since we are touching on roadside gardens, I thought I'd include it now.
I have a triangle roadside area that is the place where the snowplow pushes all the snow from the street. So this area gets 'surface scraped' each winter, tons of salt deposited on it. Also, the kids in the neighborhood walk on it, ride thier bikes on it, and once in a while a car cuts the corner too fast and rides over it. As you can imagine, I had a very hard time keeping grass looking nice there.

I have never done anything to help the soil, and have tried to plant some plants I thought could withstand the abuse, but not having too much luck. Here is a picture of it in the spring, May I think. Mostly I grow a few of the rudbeckia and plant them here to give it some color. I have a couple different sedums and stella daylilies here. I've tried a few other, but to no avail. I have a couple daffs and lilies that manage to come up.

The kids like to pick the flowers I plant, and I've told myself, no matter what is done to the garden I won't cause a scene, it is there for the enjoyment of all and I'm not going to get upset about kids picking flowers or ect. easier said than done. :o)

Most of the neighbors with areas like mine fill it with a big rock and landscaping stones, but I asked the city if I could do a garden, they said just keep it under 36 inches ... that was the only requirement.

Spring roadside garden ... sorry I don't have one for later in the year.
toofew~