Last year one of the areas of our yard that I was sorely behind on updating was the mailbox garden. Since mailbox gardens typically are the first thing that people see when they come to visit it’s nice to have something to greet them. It really doesn’t take much to refresh or renew a garden. A few bags of mulch and some newspapers changed this mailbox garden:
Into this mailbox garden:
Fresh mulch really makes a difference in appearance! This mulch is shredded pine mulch I picked up yesterday. Three and a half 2 cubic foot bags refreshed and added several feet of garden to both sides of the mailbox. Whenever I start new garden areas I subscribe to the “lazy” gardener method – newspapers! Throughout the garden season I use a ton of old newspapers as a weed barrier to kill of the underlying layers of grass or weeds. I like this method much better than removing the sod since laying a few newspapers is so much easier. Just wet the newspapers lay them down and cover with mulch. 3-5 layers of newspapers is usually enough coverage.
I haven’t added anything new to the garden since last year but I do have plans to in the expanded areas on the right and left of the mailbox garden. Blackeyed Susans (rudbeckia) will take up residence on the left while some Russian Sage will be planted on the right. They should look great with some of the other perennials like ‘Purple Homestead’ verbena, salvia, veronica, Catmint ‘Walker’s Low’, a clematis, several daylilies, and a mum or two. I can’t wait to see how things grow together!
Also in the garden is creeping phlox and several daffodils. I really like the look of bulb plants emerging through groundcover plants. As you can see the daffodils in this garden are still a little behind everywhere else. So it goes with life in the frost pocket…just call me zone 5b!
That's the key–a bigger mailboz bed. Why was I thinking so small with mine? Larger looks much better.
We call this the lasagna approach. When we moved into this house we had so much sod that we did not want when we carved out beds, we turned it over, put newspaper on top and mulched. Everyone I told about it thought we were nuts, but it worked!
Eileen
Looks great. I need to do something at my mailbox.
The lasagne method is so much easier…what a big difference a little mulch can make!