Keeping up Appearances

Saturday we spent working in the front yard. Since the appearance of the garden in front obviously matters more than what the backyard looks like (right now it pretty much looks like a lumber yard/unweeded vegetable beds/hill covered in super-tall grass) we spend Saturday working in the front yard for a change. Other than about 10 hours spent ripping out ivy, mint & tansy we haven’t done much until now.  But still our focus is on making the plants we put in useful, not just pretty.

First, and most importantly, we are not putting in annuals. Selling annuals is a huge business; every nursery I go to has tables and tables of annuals with just a few perennials (often just shrubs). I don’t get why you’d want to re-plant your garden every year. We want the plants in our yard to sort of establish a long-term relationship with each other.

Poppies

Our second goal is to have NO grass to mow. We are pretty lucky in this regard as the previous home owners landscaped 90 percent of the front yard. This is doubly nice because many of the plants they put in are both beautiful and useful in that they attract butterflies, bees and birds (the zebra grass also seems to attract praying mantis which is awesome). There are also raspberries and – if you are so inclined – daylilies to eat.

Raspberries

Our general plan is to put decorative plants near the sidewalk (close to where people walk their dogs) and plant edibles at least 6 feet from any danger of dogs using them to mark territory or whatever. We are also trying to control some invasive plants that we actually want, grouping like plants together, destroying invasive plants that we don’t want and trying to balance pretty with useful. I want both flowers to cut and plants to eat/make tea with/etc.

NEW! Shasta Daisies, Salvia, Blackeyed Susans

So, to meet these goals, here is what we’ve done or are planning to do in the very near future:

1. tear out invasive ground cover/ivy that covers half the yard so that we can use that space for herbs (that area gets some of the best sun on our property)

2. put cardboard down over this area and cover it with mulch to further ensure the death of said vines

3. move plants away from the poppies which are HUGE and amazing and which we want to encourage

4. collocate similar plants

5. dig down into the mud hole that used to be yucca plant to find out if any has re-grown (of course, it has…I cut out a large piece of healthy looking root)

6. plant shasta daisies & black-eyed susans where the yucca used to be, with two white salvia bushes planted behind these (salvia attracts butterflies, the other flowers are just because I like them)

7. i’m moving the violets to border the driveway where we have a 12-in strip of grass

8. i’m moving the lamb’s ear (which is choking out other plants) to the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road

9. planted a new butterfly bush (this one will have white flowers)

10. planted two clumps of chamomile (i may buy a couple more next saturday at findlay market)

11. we cleared all the mint and tansy from the raspberry patch on the side yard (raspberries don’t do well with competition)

12. josh staked down the raspberry branches so that they will (hopefully) create new canes

13. today i am putting 12 inch aluminum sheeting around the tansy and the mint so that it won’t spread

14. we have woodruff, echinacea, st.john’s wort and some plants that we don’t even know about yet coming in so we aren’t going to tear out anything else until later this summer

15. soon we are renting a chipper along with several of our neighbors to chip up wood from the backyard…mulch from this will be used on the side of the yard that didn’t yet get any.

16. I pulled up the cheap-looking black plastic edging that is along the gardens and am carrying rocks up from the creek to line the path

17. covering said path with a black tarp to keep grass/weeds from growing and we are going to make this a gravel path (no mowing!)

Crowded by LambsEar

LambsEar

Dwarf Lilac

Salvia