Brick Edging For the Lawn

After

Before (Sod had already been removed.)

I'm in the midst of a huge (for me) landscaping project.  We grew up in Arizona and are not lawn people.  We just aren't that great with the upkeep and didn't get that gene passed down to us.  We never had lawns growing up!  But we have a tiny front patch, and a fairly small back lawn.  In the past ten years, the lawn had grown lumpy-bumpy and uneven.  It was full of weeds (that kept reseeding and spreading like crazy).  I HATED it and for several years have considered having it ripped out so we could start fresh.

This summer I did just that.  I hired a couple guys to rip it out and replace it with lush grass.  On a flat surface.  That was the easy part.  I simply wrote a check and a week later I had a new lawn!

The hard part was the second step.  I've always wanted some kind of barrier between the lawn and the garden...to help keep the lawn on its side.  What I liked best was a flat brick border.  But that meant digging a trench around the lawn, laying down sand, and putting it in brick by brick.

In early June we had 4 solid days of rain and the ground was perfect for digging.  I hired the neighborhood boys to come and dig out a trench.  The best $30 I ever spent.  I thought it was a bargain...their mom thought it was too much.  So now that the trench was ready,  I bought the sand and bricks.


I put down the first 30 bricks and was cruising along when an injury set in...lateral epicondylitis, or tennis elbow.  (The injury was from a car accident at the end of May when I gripped the steering wheel with all my might.)  With 70% of the yard left to do, I thought it would never get done.  I thought about hiring someone to finish the job, but Brian got out there yesterday, and put down another 30 bricks.  I figure we're about 65% done...whohoo!!

Newspaper and boxes covering stray grass

Once we had a nice stretch of brick edging in place, I started to put down newspaper on the garden side, to smother the stray grass/weeds.  For the past couple weeks, as soon as we're finished with the newspaper, I've been taking it outside as a method of passive weeding.  The newspaper smothers the weeds and  breaks down naturally. 

Compost

Yesterday I got so excited that some areas were sooooooo close to completion.  All they needed was some good soil smoothed out on top of the newspaper.  Thankfully, I happened to have an entire bin full of completed compost!  So I started filling one little bucket at a time and pouring it on top of the newspaper. I did a small section yesterday, and then finished a bit more today.  The end result...WOW!!  I absolutely LOVE the border and can't wait until the rest is in place.  I'm hoping the small completed section will be motivation to finish up the rest of the project.  I can't wait!!

LOVE!

Re-growing Green Onions?

Green onions are a staple in our kitchen.  I always use them. So I was intrigued to see all the images on Pinterest showing green onions re-growing on the kitchen window sill...in a glass of water.  Finally I decided to see what it was all about.

After I chopped up my onions, I kept the rooted end, with the white bulb (DANG...I usually chop that up too...right to the root!) attached.  Put them in a glass and added a bit of water. Changed the water every few days.  Slowly, but surely, they started to grow again. Can I say that again....SLLLOOWWWLLY...but surely.  Yes, slowly.  Too slow.

While these little beauties are growing on my windowsill, I've already purchased at least 5 more bunches at the grocery store!  I'm afraid I'd need about 10 glasses on my window sill, all growing at staggered rates to keep me supplied.

The green onions in back have been growing for three weeks.  The ones up front for four days.

So, does it work?  Yeah, it does.  Will I keep re-growing my green onions on my window sill?  Nope.

Simple Roses

As I was working in the yard tonight, I accidentally snapped off this rose.  I cannot compost such a pretty blossom, so I got out a tiny little vase for it.  The  "vase" is a cut glass salt or pepper shaker.  Originally it had a little glass top, but some time ago the top broke.  It's one of my favorite little mini vases...perfect for a single blossom.

Shade Path

On the south side of my home is a small strip of land.  I'd estimate there's only about 8' from the house to the fence.   We've lived here for 8 1/2 years, and this was the very last section of our yard to landscape.  There's a story about why it took so long to get to, but I'll get to that in a bit.  I started on this strip a year ago, and I'm just thrilled with how it's coming along.

All along the fence I have clematis growing.  Some is doing well.  Some is growing slower than the others.  Some died and need to be replaced.  But once it picks up steam (probably in a couple years), my hope is that large expanse of fence will be covered with vines and flowers.  There are evergreen varieties interspersed with deciduous ones, so that there will be green throughout the year.  My dining room window looks out to this view, and I'm so glad to see a little less brown and a bit more green!

Down lower is a border of bleeding hearts, hellebores (cream, rose and burgandy blooms), pink tulips, creamy soft yellow daffodils, allium, and sweet woodruff on the ground.  I just love when it's all in bloom, and can't wait until the border has a backdrop of clematis running up the fence.

For the path to the gate, I chose Irish Moss which spreads in soft clumps.  I would've loved to have put in a flagstone path, but that was beyond our budget right now.  I have the Irish Moss on the other side of the house, and it's done very well, with light traffic.   When I put in the moss last year, I bought a flat of it, and broke it up into tiny pieces to plug into the ground.  I expect that the mounds will be touching by next year.

While the south side of this path gets full shade, the northern part up against the house gets a lot of sun.  Last year I planted sunflowers, cosmos, and zinnias, and plan to do the same again. I love to look out of my dining room window and see the tall cosmos flowers blowing in the wind.  So much nicer than it used to be!

So why did it take us so darn long to landscape this strip?  Well, when we first moved into the house, a low retaining wall was in place as our yard is slightly higher than the neighbor's yard.  The only problem is that there was a good 18" of our land on the other side of the wall.  When we put up a fence years ago, we could've put the fence on the property line, but the fence would've been very low.  So we chose to put it on our side of the wall.  The only problem was the soil wasn't stable until you came into a yard a bit.  So for years our fence was 2-3 feet in from the property line.  That 2-3 foot strip of land was enclosed in our neighbor's yard!

 Over time we realized that we'd have to do something about that, or we'd end up losing the land.  2 1/2 years ago, our neighbors put their house up for sale.  That was a sign to us that we needed to reclaim the land...immediately.  Not having the money to replace the retaining wall, we went ahead and had a fence company move the existing fence back a few feet...onto the lower land.   The fence had the illusion of being about 2' shorter than it had been.  We could now see so much of our neighbor's yard!


To create the illusion of height, we had the fence posts extend 2' above the fence.  Then I ran galvanized wire from post to post and planted the clematis.    Right now we have about 10 clematis plants growing and only one is tall enough to have reached the wire above the fence.  I can't wait until the other plants get that tall!

How to Start Gardening

On a message board I frequent, one of the ladies recently mentioned that she wanted to start gardening, but was overwhelmed with all the information.  Should she make her own potting soil with worm castings?  Should she be composting her food waste to add to the garden?  As a beginning gardener, these suggestions were too much, too soon.  With so much information available online, something so simple was becoming stressful.

I thought back to my gardening beginnings.  I've always grown up around gardening.  My grandmother always had enviable flower beds and fruit trees.  Growing up in Arizona, my mom  had a natural cacti/desert garden bed, but also grew annual flowers in pots every year.  Though I noticed the gardens, gardening didn't especially interest me.

When we moved from Arizona to Indiana (over 20 years ago) we had a small apartment on the ground floor.  This small apartment had a fenced in yard.  A tiny yard, but a yard, nonetheless.  After living in Arizona for so many years, I was amazed at what could be grown in a more moderate climate (as if Indiana is really moderate!).  Anyway, I recall going out back one day and digging up a strip of earth along the fence line.  I remember being on my hands and knees and getting really dirty.  Somehow I knew to amend the soil, as I hauled bags of soil to the yard.  With my bare hands (I've never been a fan of gloves) I mixed up the native soil with the bagged soil.  My gardening had begun.

Markum's Pink Clematis

My next door neighbor, Sug (as in Sugar), was from Louisiana, I believe.  She was a character who was larger than life.  She spoke with a thick southern drawl and had a cigarette in hand every time I saw her.  Her yard was the same size as mine, and I was amazed at how lush it was.  Her favorite plants were clematis, and they were growing up her fence in every direction.  She packed in the plants, and stuck them wherever she saw an empty spot of dirt.  I know she influenced my gardening, as I longed to have a yard as lush as hers.  Still, it would be a good 15 years before I bought my first clematis plant, and another 5 before I could rival her with such a large variety.

So, back to my little strip of land by the fence....I grew flowers there.  And when I ran out of space I started on another strip next to the patio.  Hollyhocks of every color flourished in this space.  I remember growing morning glory plants from seed that ran up the post and to the patio railing of the apartment above me. 

The neighbors above grew gorgeous tomatoes in pots.  When I asked them their secret, they told me about Miracle-Gro.  I went off to buy my first container of Miracle-Gro, and twice a month I religiously watered my plants with fertilizer.  A couple years later, I was bragging to them about how well the Miracle-Gro was working, and that I was amazed at how long it lasted!  They questioned it lasting so long, and as we got to talking about it, I realized that I'd never taken off the plastic seal on the Miracle-Gro container.  For two years I'd been fertilizing with water!

And that was the start of my learn-as-you-go gardening.  You will do silly things.  You will make mistakes.  You will kill plants.  You will be attracted to plants that don't grow in your zone.  You will buy those plants and hope, hope, hope they survive.  Most likely, they won't.  But that won't stop you from trying again...

And that, is what gardening really is...finding out what you like, and just trying it out.  Start small.  Get comfortable tending to one small patch of land.  Then, if you like it, keep going.

Here's the advice I left to the overwhelmed beginning gardener.  Hopefully it will help someone else out who's just beginning too!

How to Start Gardening

If you get caught up in doing everything right and wanting to know everything there is to know, you are going to wear yourself out before you've even begun! I've been

Raised bed

gardening for 20 years now, and I've never made my own potting mix with worm castings.

1) Think about what you want to plant (small scale). Do you want edibles like veggies or herbs? Or do you want ornamental flowers? With flowers, do you want something that will come back every year (perennial) or something that has a long-lasting seasonal bloom, but has to be replaced each year (annuals)?

2) Pick out a small space in your yard. Start off small. Is it sunny, shady, or partly sunny? That will influence what you can grow there. How is the existing soil? Grassy? Weedy? Rocky? Clay-like?  You can cover weeds/grass with layers of newspaper to kill them. Then you can dig up that area (or build a simple raised bed on top).

Every few years I get 2-3 cubic yards of50/50 soil delivered to my home.

3) Whatever space you choose, AMEND THE SOIL. I can't stress that one enough. Dig up the local soil, add in some compost or 50/50 (50 percent good garden soil/50 percent compost) and mix that all together. You will be AMAZED at how much good soil helps your plants. I think this is often overlooked. 

4) Don't plant so close to your home. You really don't want the mature plant up against the house.

5) When buying plants, go to a local garden center (as opposed to Home Depot or Lowes). Find out what zone you're in (how cold it gets in winter) and buy plants that are recommended for that zone. Look at the plant tag to see if it needs sun or shade. Look at how big the plant gets at maturity (will you have room for it full grown?).

6) Buy the plant and stick it in the amended soil. Water and enjoy!!!

Start with something small and easy like this. Soon, you'll be looking for any little patch of land to re-do! You will make mistakes. You will kill plants. Don't worry...just enjoy and have fun!