Here is a picture of our new territory that I didn’t quite know I had until a couple weeks ago. It is covered in a variety of weeds including notable family favorites like ragweed, goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace. Now if it were just the latter two weeds I would be OK with the area as a natural wild field area, but I declared war on the ragweed a long time ago.
I have a step by step idea for this area of the yard. I want to create paths and small to medium size circles of weeds that I can manage as I go. Each of these areas will eventually become a planting spot for perennials or ground covers. This will also let me map out where I want to place beds and give me a gradual feel for the area. Rest assured I will take out any ragweed that dares to stand in my way! Later I want to put a small bench/seating area so you can look down on the rest of our backyard. I will need to do much of this before spring gets into swing since it is all dead right now. Once spring gets going the weeds will start growing which will make clearing them all the more difficult. I’m also considering planting some evergreens on the top edge of the area. I’ve always liked spruces because of their shape and color.
Above you can see the mass of weeds that entangles this slope. In the background are two of our neighbors houses. It would be nice to provide them with something other than ragweed as a late summer and autumn display. For many of the plants I may go native but I like too many other plants to stick just to natives. Some ornamental goldenrod would be good, since it looks great and thrives in our area. Perhaps some Joe-Pye Weed, Rudbeckia, and loads of ornamental grasses. Nancy Ondra on her blog Gardening Gone Wild showed a picture of one area of her meadow garden that was filled with ornamental grasses. The second to last image is one I’d like to emulate in my yard. My area is a slope so it naturally will be different but there is such a great variety of textures in that image, who wouldn’t want to emulate it?
Seeing Seedlings (Dianthus and Hosta)
Yesterday I gave you a sneak peek at one of my favorite perennials that I decided to try and grow from seed this year, the heuchera! The seeds came from our corner shade garden which contains a small variety of heucheras like ‘Palace Purple’, ‘Mocha’,…
A Review of Five-Plant Gardens by Nancy Ondra
Recently I was given the opportunity to check out Nancy Ondra’s latest book called Five-Plant Gardens. Nancy Ondra writes the blog Hayefield and has written several other books including The Perennial Care Manual. She is definitely what I consider and expert on perennial plants! This…
Timing Is The Root of a Good Garden
January 2015 is almost here and with it will come time to plan out your 2015 garden. We all know that for a plant to grow well it needs a strong root system. The same can be said for the garden as a whole. A…
Thrifty Gardening Tip Follow Up: Buying and Saving Discount Plants
Previously in my new series of posts about how to garden on a budget, Thrifty Gardening Tips, I wrote about finding and saving discount plants. After writing that post, I had an urge to go out and look to see what I could find. It…
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Dave,
A sort of blank canvas if you will. It will be beautiful and fun to create your new territory/meadow garden and for us to see it grow.
Gail
you have a LOT of work ahead of you! good luck and i’m looking forward to seeing the progress.
Can’t wait to see how you transform it! I love finding new garden projects…keeps us guessing doesn’t it?
That will be challenging but so much fun. I can’t wait to see it develop.
Wow, dont forget you have to plan for a wedding garden also! You will have a busy year…
It should be fun to see it come together over time. I’m not feeling any pressure to get this done fast. I just want to get things started. Skeeter the wedding stuff won’t be as intensive as I originally thought. I’ll get to do my favorite part soon, the trees and shrubs. A friend of the family is a florist and does some great arrangements so she will probably decorate most of the flowers. I’ll be heading up there next weekend to help find some plants for the landscape.