Specialty Gardening: Beneath the birdfeeder ideas?, 1 by Susannah_C

Susannah_C wrote:
The attached photo shows the long strip of yard that leads to the birdfeeder hook. We're just beginning to garden this area -- you can barely see hostas and coleus in the very back, and in the foreground in front of the birdfeeder area, the new "chapel garden" a-building, with herbs, coleus, columbine, a Japanese maple, a birdbath and -- not visible in the picture -- an old stained-glass window from a church, propped against the fence.

Beneath the birdfeeder is just dirt. We feed a lot, and we find that for whatever reason grass won't grow beneath our feeders. Lots of traffic from birdy feet? (We have a lot of pigeons and doves on the ground.) Doesn't matter to me -- feeding the birds is a priority over beauty for me -- but I was wondering what might at least be pretty to put OVER the dirt that's still okay for the birds to walk on, easy to clean, etc. I was thinking maybe some kind of pea-gravel effect that I can rake (daily? oh dear) in a circle or whatever. The area beneath the feeder is almost circular, ovoid maybe.

I do plant to install more Turk's Cap and hostas along the fenceline. It's a bit dodgy, because there are numerous crepe myrtle roots along that fence, also (the trees are on the other side of it), but so far so good.

Sidebar: see the track of dirt where grass won't grow behind the dog cottage? See how it seems to curve around either side of the cottage? That's the site of The Folie 500 -- a 3-4x daily chase that goes on in my yard: the Golden Retriever egging on the Pomeranians until they chase her madly around the cottage, over and over again. She never chases them. She taunts *them* until they chase *her*. Grass will never grow there, but it's a space we give up willing to the dogs' raw joy of the chase. You can see one of the little Poms in the shot. That's Mr. Sprits'l, a garden superviser and -- at 6 lbs. -- an athletic little Golden Retriever chaser.

More ideas of what to plant along that fenceline (almost full shade, some filtered sun) and what to do beneath the birdfeeder, if anything, are welcome!



This message was edited Jun 1, 2007 10:23 AM