Specialty Gardening: 901 photos related to cottage gardens and design, 1 by gemini_sage

gemini_sage wrote:
I don't even wet it down typically- just make sure to have the straw (or whatever compost) thick enough to keep it from blowing. Typically it absorbs moisture from the grass underneath and dew and its fairly moist in a day or two. Plain, brown, corrigated (sp?) cardboard works best- the worms love it. The sod becomes compost quickly as the covering kills it off and the earthworms are working near the surface with the increased moisture retention.

I've found dandelions will often sprout through the layers- they don't care how deeply they're buried. Even then, those are easier to get rid of individually than all that sod. Otherwise I'm having very few weed issues in those beds, they've been easy to maintain and most things I've planted in them have been very happy. In those with used potting soil, I've found a few surprises- seeds and bulbs that were hiding in there have popped up here and there. Of course, I had to just let them be, LOL. At my last house, I used mulched up tree leaves in the fall instead of straw- that was awesome, great compost and pretty and neat looking too.

When I moved to this house, I brought a lot of the garden plants with me, and just dotted them here and there in the yard where I knew I wanted gardens. Then I sort of connected the dots, laying cardboard between and filling in with straw mulch. I was in a hurry to get a lot of stuff in the ground, and ended up having to cut chunks out of the cardboard and stripping the sod underneath (that hadn't had time to die off), then getting things in the ground. A mistake I made was making some beds too big, without proper thought to giving myself room to get in there and work, LOL. I'm trying to remedy that now, but it will be easier to keep that in mind when you're laying out your beds. I've seen pics of some gardens where the paths are mulched in straw, and the beds are mulched in hardwood mulch. It was nice definition and neat and tidy looking.

This is my butterfly-hummingbird garden, kinda wild and chaotic. It's on top of what used to be gravel driveway. The rear of the bed where the tall Lilies and Mullien are was the original part of the bed, started in '06 by my friend who used to live here. Since then I've gradually increased the size of the bed as I built up quantities of used potting soil and clearanced bags of compost. The foreground was added last spring ('08). It's pretty shallow there, probably just 2-3" of soil on top of the gravel base after it has composted, but the Poppies and Bearded Iris deal well with that.