When I bought the little house and the main house, both had stunning flower gardens that were no longer at their best. An avid amateur gardener and professional landscape horticulturist/garden designer created them, respectively; their exceptional taste is still apparent amidst the weeds. I recall seeing these overgrown gardens in their full glory, such a great inspiration. They deserve to be reclaimed; it has never occurred to me to rip them out and grass them over though that would be the far easier course of action.
While I’m grateful for the prior gardeners’ expertise and efforts, I have to decide how much of their aesthetic to keep and still realize my own. Among homeowners who are living with someone else’s extensive landscaping, I suspect I’m not alone in this predicament.
I’ve selected the flower bed pictured below for my first, multi-year garden reclamation project. I’ll discuss the specific plantings in a future post.
The Garden Details
Location: The garden lies between a lawn and a long stone wall; hayfields stretch behind the wall. Since it’s toward the bottom of a gentle slope the ground is slightly moist and well-drained.
Dimensions: 11-13’ W x 106’ L (probably a bit longer due to the garden’s undulating border)
Sun exposure: full sun
Level of difficulty: 4 out of 5 stars
The Plan
First, remove the debris and weeds on both sides of the stone wall. Then lay down mulch. Lastly, install 350+ bulbs (hyacinths, daffodils, and peonies) this fall; this phase will be detailed further in a future post.
My debris and weed removal has been inefficient.
In Summer 2017, my sister and I spent several weekends cutting and removing weeds and Phragmites that bordered the hayfield side of the stone wall. Without clearing this area, there is no sight line from the house through the lawn and garden into the hayfields which is one of my main goals. We should have used mulch after we cut everything.
Then, in Fall 2018, I hired the main house’s wonderful garden designer to remove a few years of dead growth and weeds and do a hard cut back of certain specimen trees. I didn’t quite know what was in the garden and didn’t want to remove anything by mistake. I had him use mulch on another garden, but not this one. Bad decision!
The following spring, a dense wall of weeds and Phragmites sprouted once again. However, I was busy working on other outdoor projects last year so I didn’t tend to this garden.
Which brings me to this spring and summer – and the pandemic which has forced me to work from home since mid-March. In April and May, I cut back the bamboo, grasses, and weeds. Then the heat and humidity of summer drove me out of the garden. From June through August, the bamboo shot back to almost four feet and a sea of tough grasses returned.
This month, I returned to the garden, determined to stop endless weeding by using the one thing that I have an almost irrational dislike of: mulch.
Mulch
I generally dislike mulch because I think it’s too visible in most gardens or it’s an awful color. However, I’ve accepted that it’s an essential for me, and I can control its visibility and color in my application. Given the number and size of the gardens at both houses, I just don’t want to spend a fortune every year to replenish it.
Luckily, I have access to a yearly supply of free mulch but didn’t realize it until this year.
Wood Chips
When I pruned and cleaned around a row of maple trees two years ago, my tree guy chipped all the branches then hauled away truckloads of wood chips. One pile was left on-site for my sister’s gardening needs, but she never used it. The wood chip pile sat, a slight eyesore under a layer of fallen leaves, for two years.
You may have guessed correctly: that wood pile decomposed into dark brown mulch. I found compost in the center, presumably the hottest section.
It takes an hour to shovel it into a cart attached to my riding mower, ride it back to the garden then shovel it in the garden. But, it’s so worth it! I love that the land is giving back to itself – and it’s at no additional cost to me.
I’ve just bought a wood chipper, which I’ll discuss in a future Lush Heritage product review. I’m very excited to make my own mulch and compost annually and keep the property neater looking at the same time.
Fallen Leaves
Chopped leaves are another good (and free) mulch and will be my second choice here. One benefit to owning so many big deciduous trees is that I have easy access to a huge amount of autumn leaves. I only need to chop and bag them with my riding lawn mower, or shred them with my DR Leaf and Lawn Vacuum. I think I’ve timed this project just right – leaves have already begun to turn and fall.
Perfect Mulch Partners
Mulch can be even more effective when used with other materials. Plain, brown cardboard boxes and black-and-white newspapers provide an inexpensive, opaque layer beneath mulch and an extra assurance that no sunlight will penetrate the mulch. Also, unlike plastic landscaping fabric, as they decompose they’ll add beneficial organic matter to the soil.
I remove all tape and sticky labels from the boxes, break them down flat, then soak them with water using my garden hose. When they’re good and soggy I lay them on the freshly cut weeds in the garden, overlapping as I go then cover them with my wood-chip mulch.
The garden is so big, that I’m sure I’ll run out of cardboard long before I’m done covering the weeds.
When that happens, I’ll lay down 6-8 sheets of water-soaked newspaper (black-and-white only), then cover that with my mulch. I may resort to plain brown shopping bags for the base layer before I start mulching bare ground.
That’s it for now. I’ll update this project over the next several months.
Good luck to all of you who are also doing fall preparation in your flower and vegetable gardens!
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