Walkway Garden - Go!

Ever since installing our walkway arch last fall, I've been waiting for the ground to thaw (and the feet of snow we got in Kansas City to melt) so I could begin the front walkway garden I'd been dreaming of. I just so happened to be off work on Friday, and it just so happened to be sunny and beautiful, so I got to work.

Like many projects, the first step was the least fun, involving digging out all the sod that C has worked so hard on (don't worry, I had his blessing) and filling in the trench with mulch. It was total grunt work, so I was grateful to have a beautiful spring day (and a serious case of spring fever) to motivate me to get it over with.

  

We planned the shape of the beds to duplicate the shape of our walkway - which we have named "The Wine Bottle." The beds also maintain the strong symmetry of our home. The new lines add some nice drama to our sloping front yard, with the dark mulch accentuating the nice green grass.

C even said it looked like a baseball field. Whether he was just being sweet because I was so tired, or really meant it, it's pretty much the ultimate compliment from a former baseball pitcher.

I managed to wait two whole days, admiring my mulch, before I couldn't stand it anymore and picked up a few plants to get the garden started. It was Easter Sunday and my favorite local nursery was closed, so we did a quick Home Depot run and got a few staples to start adding shape to the walkway.

Enter four small sedge varieties, two blue fescue balls and two ranunculus, and things were starting to take shape. I laid them out carefully, alternating the sedge so that they won't crowd the walkway from both sides.

Everything is perennial except for the ranunculus, which is an annual in our area. I don't often put annuals in the ground, but these tiny plants with huge round blooms were just too cute to resist, and it's a bit too early for some of the other perennials I'm planning on adding.

I think as I add more plants I'll keep adding more sedge and fescue - I love the texture they provide, and they are nice tough plants to stand up to the intense sun of our west-facing front yard. 

So, here's the yard before the arch and flowerbeds:

And here it is now.

It's just a start, but a very satisfying one to me. As the weather continues to warm, I'll keep filling in the walkway at the top of the steps, get some climbers planted by the arch, and - most dramatically - plant the wide triangle portions of the beds that go down the hill.

Over the next few weeks, as the weather continues to warm, I'll add some topiary shrubs near the bottom of the hill:



Surrounded by more grasses, as well as some low-growing, tough flowers and ornamental cabbage.

 

And perhaps most importantly, some climbing english roses and clematis to grow up over the arch - adding beautiful blooms and fragrance to welcome visitors into the yard.  

I can't wait to get the rest of the space filled in and growing, but for now my few little grasses and flowers will have to hold me over. As well as some viola I packed into the window boxes on our front porch - I just couldn't resist!

While the Cat's Away . . . .

 . . . and by cat I of course mean my husband.

I was off work on Friday and Chris was not, so I took the opportunity to expand one of my flowerbeds. Ok, for the sake of full disclosure I've been talking about doing this for about a year, so I was maybe not so sneaky about it. Still, I felt a bit scandalous killing his beautiful grass with mulch while he wasn't there to object, groan, whine, etc.

I was so excited about the task at hand that I completely forgot to take a before photo, but to be honest you're not missing much. When we moved in the flowerbed ran a straight line about 15" out from the house, which left not nearly enough space for interesting or dramatic planting. So I dug the border bricks out and moved them.

And somehow when I moved the bricks from the straight line to this wide-arcing curvy line, all the while worrying about where I would find additional bricks to make up for the larger space I was covering, I ended up using three fewer bricks than the original configuration! We're calling them the Hannukah bricks. It's basically a miracle.

So, at this point I've move the bricks (and boy are my arms/legs/back sore), smothered the grass with mulch and planted the following:

1 sky pencil holly. This guy will grow in a great vertical column, approximately 2 feet wide and 8-10 feet tall when it's all said and done. It is a rather delicate plant, so it will require a lot of attention at first and it may look worse for the wear for a year or two while it gets established. Hopefully, though, if all goes well it will start springing up soon and give a nice vertical accent to the corner.

1 yellow twig dogwood. I usually think as dogwoods as the flowering trees, but this little shrub is a small-growing garden accent. It will flower like the trees, and then in the winter when the greenery dies back it will display bright yellow/orange branches. It should get no taller than about three feet though.

and a few perennials. I also placed an order at a good cheap online retailer I've used a few times before for a rose bush and a few additional perennials and prairie grasses to begin filling in my new space.

Over the next month or so I'll keep on planting. My hope is that by the end of the summer, when you approach our house from the south, you'll be greeted by a lush flowering little oasis. That's not to much to ask, is it?

And speaking of oasis, spring has officially begun to bloom at our house. In addition to crocus, we have daffodils and hyacinth blooming, as well as buds and sprouts all over. And . . . I spent today prepping the veggie beds for planting. I should hopefully have more to report on that tomorrow.