This will be a short diary because I have been crazy busy with work the past few weeks. My subject for this week’s diary is gardening as a form of community service. I am the Vice President of the Board of Trustees of my county library. We have one library building for the entire county and it is located in the county seat which has the largest population of around 7600 people. It is an historic building with an addition added in the 70’s or 80’s. Our Director has been wanting something to be done with this garden plot by the front entrance but doesn’t know anything about gardening so asked for my help. As you can see it is a very sad little garden plot. So, we met at a local garden center and I picked out plants. Then, on a Sunday, because the library is closed, my husband and I set to work.
We had to pick out a bunch of river rock that someone had put in the middle of the bed and take out this sign and flower pinwheels.
My husband used a pitchfork to break up the soil while I separated the rocks, trash and daffodil bulbs. We dug out daylilies and black-eyed susans.
After getting everything out of the bed we added mushroom compost and peat moss to improve the soil. Then, finally, the fun part. This is a north facing garden that gets morning sun so I picked out plants that can handle shade but will also hold their color over the winter. The bayberry are pretty scraggly but I’ll prune them into a nice shape next year. All of the plants are also low maintenance. We also dug up three large hostas from our garden to fill up the space. I broke up the daylilies and replanted them but did not replant the black-eyed susans — they just take over.
Here it is after four hours of work. We replanted about 150 daffodil bulbs in groups of fives and sevens. (I’m going to plant the rest of the bulbs in my hosta garden). The handyman mulched it for us the next day.
I’m really happy with what we accomplished and we’re getting lots of compliments from our patrons.
Maybe there is a garden plot in your community that could use some love?