I am in the stages of planning and laying out a new gardenbed that had nothing in it. About 14 feet wide by about 24 feet, can't remember what I measured it at now. It is in my backyard and were I was growing my tomatoes and veggies. I am now going to grow my tomatoes and veggies elsewhere in a new square garden space I had done last year. I had flower gardens at each end of this space, now it will just be one big backyard flower garden.
I plan to use daylilies, lilies, Siberian and Tall Bearded Iris, Dahlias, gladiolas, annuals and bulbs. For annuals I had in mind snapdragons, zinnias, cosmos and poppies. For spring bulbs, daffodils, crocus and dutch iris. Maybe some tulips.
The way I went about this was I decided on what I want to be there, flower wise. Then I set about making a layout that will make it work. I will take pictures and post them as I go along. I am just at the very beginning stages of this project now.
Doing a new Cottage Garden flower bed.
A new garden project is always so exciting. Good luck - it will be a lot of fun watching it evolve.
I ran out of planting space, so I am now taking over the lawn for a small raised, eventually lined with rock, flowerbed. It is not nearly as big as yours though.
That looks wonderful. I especially like the raised beds in back. But if it was me, I would make the new bed larger and cut more into the lawn. Are you going to put those rocks as edgers all along that bed?
Here is a picture of the area I am working on. Mostly all bare in the middle. It will bring together this daylily garden I have at the end of this bed pictured here. That I have had for two years
It will tie in to the far end of the bed which already has a garden started pictured here. Those are my serviceberry shrubs in bloom. They make purple summer berries that the birds are nuts over. I find them bland compaired to blueberries.
You have a nice expansive area to work with - plenty of room for all kinds of plants. I have not heard of serviceberries, but I am hoping to plant some blueberries this year. Beautiful bed of daffodils.
My thoughts exactly on my raised bed - I enlarged it a bit a few days ago, and may enlarge it even more LoL. And Yes, I am going to edge it with more rocks like what you alreay see. My neighbor across the street re-landscaped, and have a bunch of little/medium sized rocks leftover. Free material - that was the incentive I needed to kick-start this project - plus the fact that I bought a new peony plant that I wanted to showcase in the front of my house, and all the prime spots were taken up by other plants.
I think those rocks as edging really just top off the gardenspace, I love them. But then I like all my gardenbeds with some sort of stone or block edging.
My serviceberry was in bloom just a couple days ago. I like the berries, but have found some are just better tasting than others. this one at home is just average in taste.
newyorkrita, how do you keep the grass out of your bed with just the bricks? Do you have some sort of edging in place there?
If you look at the first picture I posted you can see the edger pavers that define the outlines of the entire bed. It is all one big island bed. Meaning you can walk all around it, there are paths along the front bak and sides. The edgers do keep the grass out although everything is heavily mulched. The new area will get mulched also when its done.
Then I will put those rows of bricks and edger pavers in an area in the middle. This is to define the iris bed section that I intend to plant there.
As to the Serviceberries, there are many differnt kinds. Some are shrubs, some are trees. This one is a shrub kind called Regent that grows about 5 feet tall. It makes large berries. The fruit is good for eating and the backyard birds absolutely love it. If you ever want to attract fruit eating birds into the backyard in the summer, get a serviceberry. Mockingbirds, Catbirds, Orioles, Robins, Blackbirds and others are there eating fruit all day long.
How long has that been there?
I planted 2 serviceberries 3 years ago. I'm hoping they start doing something a little more than what they have been. Very slow growing! We call them juneberries. My mom has fond memories of eating them on their farm in MO while they were growing up. I suspect ours don't get enough sun.
Serviceberries don't need much sun. Can't remember how long the shrubs have been there. At least 7 years now. The gardenbed has been there a long time but I only put in those edger pavers three years ago this spring. The reason being I thought it would look better plus I needed it to stop the grass from always creeping into the gardenspace.
The pavers don't look like they go down far enough into the soil to keep the grass out! But your bed looks great. I have a couple areas I need to figure out how to edge. I would love to just use bricks...
Those edger pavers do keep the grass out. It still had to be mulched though. I like my beds to have stone edging. Sometimes I do brick, sometimes these edger pavers that I have here. Plus I also have the raised beds done with those stackable interlocking pavers I get from Home Depot.
I'm going to have to try it. I really like the look!
Have any of you used flat stacked stones around your beds? I think that I would like to do this for my island in the front. The ground has a gently slope so the stones would also give a level area instead of a sloping island. I don't want to use mortar and it wouldn't be more than a foot high at the most in the front with probably half of that in the rear.
I just love the look of stacked stones. It has such a New England feel. When I lived in Connecticut, it seemed that everyone had stone walls.
I have a low stacked stone wall running across the entire front of my property. It separates the sidewalk from the garden and raises the gardenbed so its off the street level. Mine is done with morter though, as it would not stay in place otherwise. I love the look of stacked stone.
Also if you look at my pictures in this thread on the Lily Forum, you will see a low stacked stone wall just done to be pretty and define the shrub area from the plant area in front of it. These are just dry stacked, no mortor.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1079928/
Did you do the dry stack wall yourself Rita? I'm thinking about using stone about half the depth of yours - the thin stones.
Yes, it is just laid down, very easy. It was actually some leftover rock from another project. Didn't know what to do with it so I got the idea to do the loose stacked wall.