Over the next couple of days, I am going to do a tour of what I’ve been working on this summer in our garden. As I’ve mentioned previously, this is our second summer in our Virginia home. During the first summer, I basically maintained the plants I brought with me from my old garden plus tried to grow grass and establish new plants.
This year, I focused on the beds, leaving the grass for the cooler fall weather. However, I did think about the grass in terms of where it would be a struggle to grow and where we need to restructure the layout for proper water drainage. After doing some research, I found I needed to wait until the fall to address the grass, and the deep shade areas would not necessarily be good for growing grass.
My plan is to turn this area next to the driveway into a significantly-sized bed which will be mostly shade. As you can see in the photo, the grass next to the bed is none existent. I would love to take advantage of the sunny area as a small vegetable garden, but I haven’t figured out how to do it and make it mowable at the same time.
This year, I expanded the front of the bed, and I’m slowly working on expanding the back to the edge of the woods. The full sun area is focused on culinary herbs and sun-loving perennials. Over time, I’d like to grow clematis up the 2 tree trunks.
This portion of the bed at the end of the driveway is mostly sunny which is why I planted rose bushes right at the edge of the driveway. I also put in a small butterfly bush and a rhododendron. Along with the shrubs, I have some Echinacea from the clearance rack and smaller Echinacea plants I transplanted from elsewhere in the yard. The clearance plants are struggling a bit with the high temperatures and full sun. I’m crossing my fingers they hang in long enough to produce new growth.
Here’s another view of the same area at the end of the driveway. I started setting stones for a pathway. I plan to have this pathway converge with another pathway in the bed and run it along the backside of the bed by the woods. I found the stones at Lowe’s for about $3.58. My goal is to make the bed accessible for maintenance while minimizing the compaction of the soil.
Here is the second path which will converge with the other one. I plan on adding stones to these paths over time as I build up the beds. The shade in this area is more dappled. As we clean out the weed trees in the adjacent wooded area, this area may receive more early morning sun. In the meantime, I am planting hostas bordering the path. In between the stones I am planting carpet bugle, a nice ground cover that spreads easily.
As I work on building up the bed in this area, I plan to make use of large pots filled with annuals to provide color. This fall, I will also plant daffodils and wood hyacinths for early spring color next year. This year, I’ve already put in a native iris plant and iris versicolor seeds.
This is the other bed which I’ve connected to the bed by the driveway. As you can see, the area receives afternoon sun. I planted a peony towards the back of the bed, along with hosta, and hypericum.
As I share my garden tour, I am documenting the plants with a hand-drawn map and photos. I need to move some plants this fall for next year. I also want to document where I put tubers, etc. that I need to store inside for the winter in case they do well in particular spots. I’ve been keeping the plant tags in a folder or next to the plants in the ground. I will pull all the plant tags after documenting the plants. While I’m more of a free spirit with my garden efforts, I’d like to have a better idea of how my planting strategies and experiments work for the following year and over time.
2 dogs and a house 