Front Garden Re-Do

Our family project for the last two weekends:

Rebuilding a corner garden next to our porch.


I didn't take a before picture - (above is the "after")

 but the corner garden existed with railway ties, in three tiers,

 very similar as shown above.

But the wood started to deteriorate and so it needed to be torn down

and built back up with sturdier materials.

Step 1:  Draw out a plan - I drew out a rough idea of what we wanted.

Step 2:  get a crew together:  husband, Gary; son Sam and son Ethan

(I'm the supervisor and photographer!)

Step 3: Gary, Sam and Ethan (not pictured)

tore down the old garden

and shoveled the soil onto the driveway.

Step 4: Gary laid down a cloth barrier to prevent weeds from growing up.

Step 5:  Ethan and Gary lay out the foundation brick work.

We knew we wanted red garden brick,

but knowing the foundation will not be seen,

we used cinder blocks to save some Moo-Lah.

Oops!  Don't need that front layer, it will be seen.  We took that off.

 

Step 6:  Lay in the decorative brick.

The cinder blocks gave us height and a ground work for the decorative brick.

Ethan suggested "gluing" the bricks down to keep them from falling.

This was done with a concrete adhesive. 

We let that sit and dry a full 24 hours before filling in with soil.

Step 7:  Fill in with soil and compost

 starting on the top tier and working down.



Step 8:  My husband and I have always collected rocks, large and small from different areas we've visited, so we thought a rock garden would be appropriate.  The large rocks were placed in the garden before any plants.  Some rocks even had holes that could house a plant inside.

Step 9:  Planting time!
I have an enormous amount of mums,
so I separated several clumps and planted them
towards the back of the bottom two tiers.
Then filled in with more draught tolerant plants like
 sedum, dianthus, and decorative grass.

Step 10:  Hmmmm...maybe we should put down more

barrier cloth to prevent unwanted weeds as well as keep the rocks from sinking into the soil?

Yep....I think so. 

 So we cut the cloth to fit around the plants, and simply placed the large rocks on top.

Step 11:

Now we decided to fill in with white garden rock.  (actually there are tan and grey rocks too!)

Only $3.98 per 25lb. bag at Lowe's!

The top tier houses a nice decorative grass that will grow up to 2 feet tall.

You simply cut it back in the fall and it will grow back.

Love the sedums!

I even placed one of my garden totems in the rock garden!
(see my previous post on how to make your own garden totem pole).

And here is the finished product!

Now to start on the garden above and to the left!
Hmmm....thinking Purple Wave Petunias and Sweet Potato Vine?

Thank you for reading!
Hope you have fun getting your gardens ready for Spring 2013!
Remember to "Keep Calm and Kerri On"!