Garden Makeover

Perennials are the best.

I have six flower beds with 900 square feet of planting space in our yard, and each one has primarily perennials. I cultivate and rearrange and thin and sell and pull out and cut for arrangements and give away and thoroughly enjoy them.

We have a long, narrow bed right by our front porch. When we moved in, there were already a few rose bushes and some tall phlox, and I added a few things through the years.

While it's really established and pretty, I also felt that it was getting quite overgrown. The ground cover was kind of a pain, and the lavender patch on the right end was overtaking things.

So I enlisted the help of the men in my family, and they were so kind to dig up everything. Yes, everything.

Quite a collection that was redistributed to a few other spots in my yard and shared with a friend

A Blank Slate

A drain spout goes right through this bed, so it's been nice to have a strong root system in recent years. (I didn't think of this fact when I decided to do this revamping project.)

I'm concentrating on adding back some of my favorite perennials that grow in a more controlled, circular pattern. Yarrow, heuchera, Japanese iris, veronica, and mums are a few that I am working on moving into this new spot.

I transplanted a lot of the lavender to an often-unseen area where weeds constantly threaten to take over. I am hoping that the lavender wins next year!

The guys dug up those threatening weeds here, too,
so I could move some of my plants to this area.

The past few days, I have worked on rearranging and sharing some of my favorites from the back yard into this flower bed. It's so empty! But once I add some mulch to tuck it all in for the winter, it will be fun to see what comes back bigger and stronger and prettier next year!