Curbside Garden…or “Streetscaping”

In our ongoing quest to eliminate the need to ever mow grass I spent a couple afternoons transforming the narrow strip (of grass) between the sidewalk and the street into a rock garden, complete with a variety of sedum and about 35 hens-and-chicks. These are plants that thrive in harsh conditions…it gets HOT between the asphalt and sidewalk and Ohio winters can be pretty fierce, too. They shouldn’t require any watering and will spread over time. So far the plants have also survived several duck attacks. I found the plants ripped out of the soil, lying on the sidewalk or street several times and mentally blamed kids riding their bikes through the gravel. Well. Yesterday I looked out the window early in the morning to see Mr. Duck running through the gravel, pushing rocks onto the sidewalk, pausing only to rip a couple of the plants right out of the ground and toss them in the street!! Then he ran the entire length of the patch flapping his wings as if he thought I’d installed him a personal runway. Weird. Nothing to do but re-situate the plants. They seem OK and hopefully the duck will get distracted by his mate and 8 babies and stop the shenanigans! 

Anyway. Here is how to build a curbside garden that doesn’t involve grass. Key step: dig deep enough that you remove as much of the root structure as possible! This will prevent you from having to continuously weed out the grass…it can be very persistent. So:

1. Dig at least 6 inches down, scraping your shovel along the concrete to dislodge roots that cling.
2. Layer pack gravel or sand about 2 inches thick to discourage grass/weeds from sprouting.
3. Lay landscape fabric on top of the gravel to further discourage unwanted plants.
4. Topsoil, 3 inches deep.
                     NOTE: Depending on what you are planting you may need more or less than 3 inches of topsoil. We chose plants that need almost NO soil; a neighbor used wooly thyme which presumably                            needs more soil to support its root structure and for water, nutrients, etc. There are lots of different plants that will work, depending on your climate, of course.
5. Embed your plants of choice in the topsoil and cover with a layer of gravel if you desire. I’m also placing a few large decorative rocks for aesthetics.
6. Celebrate not having to mow this area again!