Mulching a New Garden

This weekend’s weather was a sign that there really is a light at the end of this dark tunnel we call winter – and it’s not another trains headlight! Spring is coming and the warm weather that we’re having this week has me itching to get in the garden – which is exactly what I did over the weekend – without the itching part! I managed to accomplish many of the clean-up chores that I’ve been putting off for weeks due to the cold weather and I even mulched up a new garden area.

The new garden is in our front yard and was mostly planted back in the fall. I moved transplants of coneflowers and Russian sage and also put in a few discount plant dwarf crape myrtles. I hope they made it through our winter – right now they look quite rough! We’ll see how they do when the weather gets warm enough for them to grow. I also found a Montauk daisy on discount sale and put it into this garden. (I took cuttings from it in the fall and kept indoors over the winter which I haven’t shared here on the blog yet – it’s very easy and I had a 100% success rate!) Daffodils and irises were planted to create a river of spring time flowers from the top of the garden to the front. The daffodils will need to fill in more before they look as impressive as I hope! The irises were passalong plants that needed divided and moved, isn’t that a great excuse to start a new garden? The garden itself is in a triangle shape and is cornered by three trees – 2 redbuds and one Yoshino cherry – all three are favorites of mine. The redbuds were transplants from my in-law’s woods and haven’t bloomed yet but this may be the year. They can be tricky to move because of their root systems.

The base of the garden would look great with a small stone retaining wall which may come later if I can get around to building one.  I always seem to come up with more projects than I have time to tackle.  Ask my wife and I’m sure she’ll agree. 😉

It doesn’t look like much yet since none of the plants are growing yet. I went ahead and mulched most of the area this weekend but came up a few mulch bags short. I used a combination of grass removal and newspaper layering to take care of the grass that was underneath but there are a few patches that still need some attention. I’m planning on filling the gaps with zinnias, annual rudbeckia, and verbena that should blend in perfectly with the coneflowers and Montauk daisies.