I have a long narrow space between my driveway and a brick wall. Up until now it’s been where we dump things that we’re using and storing for other projects. It was particularly bad after we cleared out my mom’s house.
I’ve struggled to find a theme for the space. We had thought about a vegetable garden but we have so many deer and rabbits and everything else that lives in the Pennsylvania woods that we decided it was out of the question.
I subscribe to Garden Gate Magazine which I highly recommend. In one of this year’s issues was a diagram and plant list for a Bird Feeding Garden. So we started by clearing it of stuff and random plants.
We had to level the ground so we used a railroad tie and leveled it using concrete pads.
My mom had this contemporary planter and trellis that I thought would do a great job of screening off the wood pile.
The bird garden plan calls for honeysuckle on an obelisk but I thought it would work better on this trellis. I planted it with two day lilies and some sedum. We also put weed barrier and gravel at the base of the railroad tie so the soil wouldn’t leach out from under it.
Then we leveled the ground with a rake as best as we could.
We bought egding stones from Home Depot and my husband laid them out. I wanted some separation between the garden and the driveway.
Then I spread out cardboard. We’ve used this method in the past and have found it works well to kill grass and weeds.
We had 4 cubic yards of compost and topsoil delivered. My husband worked his tail off to shovel and rake it out.
Now the fun part! Planting. I tried to follow the plan as close as possible. It called for a holly, viburnum nudum Winterthur (which I had to order and we’re still waiting on. But we also got a viburnum nudum Brandywine. Apparently if you have both you get more blooms and berries. They look like this in the Fall:
I also planted goldenrod, grasses, purple coneflower, hydrangea, willow (my husband loves them).
As you can see I had more space so back to the garden center! I bought hyssop which the hummingbirds love and penstemon and wild geranium. We also planted annuals like sunflowers and cosmos.
We have one last thing to do which is sink a 4 x 4 post for a platform bird feeder. Some birds prefer not swinging about while they eat apparently. We got it in the mail today. It’s made of cedar ans=d has a copper roof. Our house also has copper roofs and flashing.
We have a local feed store and they mix their own bird seed mixes. That’s on the shopping list. Unfortunately, my husband came down with Covid this week. Probably got it at graduation last Saturday. He’s doing well but it’s put the brakes on outdoor cleanup — that and the rain.
What a transformation.
Now on to what’s blooming.
That’s it for me. What’s going on in your gardens?