The Gardens Around the Shed

It’s been a while since my last garden shed update and I’ve done a few more things. Not directly on the shed itself but around the shed. You’ll see in the pictures below that there are two distinct garden areas near the shed. One directly in front of the shed and the other to the left (eastern) side. In between the two gardens is a grass pathway plenty wide enough for people to walk through and easily wide enough for a riding mower also. Today I’ll show you an overview of the gardens (which of course are still a work in progress – isn’t it always?) and tomorrow I’ll show a few of the plantings.

Here’s the front of the shed and the main planting bed. On the left you’ll see a ‘Shenandoah’ switchgrass with a sunflower peaking out from behind it. Directly to its right is a planting combination of Russian sage, rudbeckia, and Shasta daisy. Stepping stones were collected and placed where the gardener (that means me) has easy access to the front door by traversing through the garden.

Here’s a close-up of the stepping stones. I’m a big fan of natural rock in the garden.

If we slip a little more to the left you can see how the garden fits the front. I haven’t measured it but since the shed is twelve feet across the garden should be somewhere around 16-17 feet long and about 5 feet wide. Eventually I hope to construct a small walking bridge out of reclaimed lumber to the right side of this garden where the willow tree in the distance can provide plenty of summer shade. It should make a nice garden setting.

 This shot is more of the plants in the eastern bed but I had to sneak in some plants! Sunflowers to the left with seed sown cosmos popping up here and there. The big silver plant is a favorite of mine, ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia, that I grew from a little cutting.