Project – Corner Garden Flower Bed, Stages 1 & 2

Our driveway is a bit off-centre to the house, but in a directly accessible area to our front door.  We have a lawn area in front of the house on the larger side of the driveway (which I sowed from seed in 2017).  On the other side of the driveway there was wild grass and a drainage ditch running from the land behind the house.  It was a pain in the butt to cut the grass on this area – it was not worth the struggle to get the lawn mower up and the strimmer would take a while as it was awkward to walk on the uneven ground divided by the ditch.

My idea, last year, was to dig up the turf, put a drainage pipe down and then, more or less level up the area by hoeing up the earth and redistributing it.  Then, we’d be able to plant lawn seed and use the lawnmower thereby making life easier, and making the front of the house look a bit more uniform with the main lawn area on the other side of the driveway.

Makes sense, right?

So, we started.  Or rather I started as the Hubs just thought I was crazy.  He doesn’t do gardening, you see.  It took a long time last year – about 3 weeks of digging in total (with lots of backache)!  Eventually, the pipe was laid and the flatter area started to take shape.  It was about a 4x6m area I was attempting to landscape by hand.

During this time the Hubs suggested that it might be a nice idea to forgo the idea of laying a lawn and instead just make it all a really huge flower bed.

How can I convey the feeling of my brain slumping? Instead of your thoughts crumbling down, envision just a short, strong drop and crash.  The Hubs had an idea that showed some sort of interest in what was going on in the garden and he was suggesting the placement of flowers!  This meant (as you’ll know from previous posts) that it was a once in a million occurrence so I absolutely had to give the idea some thought. Which I did.

I ended up deciding to extend the small rectangular flower bed directly in front of the house to be a bit curved and I had some extra hedging roses that I’d bought for another project area, so I put them on the back border of the area by the fence.  I then decided to make the middle of the area the main flower bed area.  I had many Potentilla plants that I had grown from seed in 2018 that were in medium sized pots, and I also had many Calendula (Pot Marigold) seedlings from the same year as I’d sown the entire pack not knowing that 90% of them would germinate.  So, it wouldn’t be the fullest looking cottage garden flower bed in that inception year but hopefully it would improve year after year, with more seedlings added.

As you can predict, this was the continuing project this year.  Of course, I had my vision but I don’t think anybody else could see it because nothing was defined. I also had to realise that many people seeing this front garden would not be able to differentiate between a weed and a plant.  And, at this point, there were a LOT of weeds! As the sun was hot and the days nice I found myself starting to work on the weeds and continue the project that the Hubs had changed on me.

After just over a week, and a lot of body ache, ibuprofen, a growing hatred of Dock Weed, scary quad-bike moments and loads of wheelbarrow trips to the composting area about 2 (very long) minutes’ walk away, the project is still only limping ahead.  But, moving forward it is!  I have cartloads of weeds to hoe up still and I’m going to have to force myself to pick up the hoe-pick after these rainy days are over.  But, even though the light at the end of the tunnel is nowhere near yet, I can hope to think that I might be halfway through the project in the next couple of weeks. Sigh.  

Just even recounting this has somewhat traumatized me – I need some calming coffee or cocoa now! (Let me just remind you, this was the brainwave of the lovely Hubs! Sigh again).

Here are the pics so far.  I’ll keep you posted on the rest. My back hurts!