Garden Gone Wild - Back from the Edge

Bringing the Garden Gone Wild back from the edge was no easy feat and I loved the challenge! It entailed many hours of weeding, digging, trimming, edging and transplanting. Starting with the largest area to the left of the front door, I worked my way around the entire house. Then I moved outwards addressing other garden areas near the swimming pool and the lily bed behind the house. This post doesn’t include any of the before shots - if you’d like to see what I started with, please go to this post Neglected Garden Gone Wild.

Weed Removal / Soil Amendments / Weed & Moisture Management

The existing soil was full of stones and gravel. It provided great drainage, but not much in the way of nutrients. The weeds were the only plants that were thriving.

Here is a list of the steps I took to bring the gardens back to life.

1. Redefined each area - cleaned up all of the edges.
2. Removed all weeds and unwanted plants and shrubs.
3. Removed a lot of stones.
4. Dug in tons of triple mix.
5. Transplanted some shrubs.
6. Divided and transplanted Hostas.
7. Trimmed many overgrown shrubs.
8. Laid down landscape fabric.
9. Applied heaps of mulch.
10. Added some new perennials.
11. Added some new shrubs.

Grossly misshapen shrubs were severely trimmed back. In some cases, the shrubs were too far gone and had to be removed completely.

Many of the gardens surrounding the house had shrubs only. To add some balance and some interest, I planted some new perennials and moved some of the existing shrubs.

New perennials and shrubs included:

Asters
Lungwort
Masterwort
Purple Coneflower
Astilbe
Lady’s Mantle
English Lavender
Yews
Ornamental Grasses
Columbine
Veronica Speedwell

The homeowners had a professional landscape contractor from the city come to measure and create a plan for new hardscaping around the house. In anticipation of future work, the large empty areas along the right side of the house and to the right of the front door received minimal attention. They did get a major weeding, some of the triple mix, and had landscape fabric and mulch applied to keep the weeds down, but were otherwise left pretty much alone. After two summers, very few weeds have crept through the landscape fabric and mulch. It is an extremely efficient method of weed management. The mulch aided tremendously with moisture management the first summer, but last summer was so dry, it had little effect - there wasn’t any moisture to keep in the soil.

Dry Creek Bed

I love using the materials that nature has provided, so with stones and rocks from around the property, (including the stones removed from the garden beds) I created a dry creek bed. Besides being an interesting garden feature, it also helps to channel rain water away from the foundation of the sunroom. You’ll see a picture farther down.

Trial & Error

Some of the work that was done involved a little trial and error. Luckily, the owners were completely up for anything. They were thrilled when they arrived each Friday to see what had changed since the previous weekend. After spending two complete summers working at the farm, I’ve been able to see what does work in certain areas and what doesn’t. It makes planning for the next summer so much easier.

And after all those hours and days of clean up and planting, here are pictures of how things looked this past summer.

Starting at the front and moving around the house:

The hostas at this corner were separated from huge clumps at the back of the house. They’re hard to spot in this picture, but there are columbine volunteers here that came from my garden.

This is one of my favorite parts of the cleaned up garden. It includes three small mounding spireas that were transplanted from the front, two new yews, a larger spirea (also transplanted from elsewhere), ferns from the bush on the property, myrtle (periwinkle), and a new Veronica Speedwell that blooms like mad!

The shrubs in this section had become way overgrown and had completely lost their shape. I ruthlessly cut back the potentillas, and the spireas. Most survived and are now filling out again in a more even growing pattern. With regular pruning, the purple-leaf sandcherry and the cotoneasters are also taking nicer shape.

All of the hostas in the photo below and the photo above came from two very large clumps in my favorite garden section.

Part of the trial and error system used in the gardens included planting ferns from the bush. In this photo they are lush and green. Their lovely presentation doesn’t last for the entire season though, so I consider this an error. I’ll probably plant perennial ferns next season.

This is the dry creek bed. The Cotoneasters in the center of it were crazy tall and straggly. They’re under control now and the owners can actually see out those windows.

I didn’t do too much planting in this area. It was a good spot for transplanting some of those severely cut back potentillas - sort of a holding place while I waited to see if they came back to life. They all made it and have grown considerably since the time this picture was taken.

This is the area to the right of the front door. It is virtually a clean slate.

One of the areas that required a great deal of attention was the cedar grove and lily bed at the back of the house. There was a mystery shrub/tree that was popping up throughout this area. It hasn’t been entirely annihilated, but with all the clean up of dead undergrowth it is much easier to spot and cut out when it does rear its ugly head.

One side of this garden bed is filled with orange tiger lilies and the other side (closest to the house) is full of lily of the valley. I broke things up a little bit by putting in some clumps of hosta.

Although the perennial bed near the pool was not intended to be a trial and error effort, that’s what it has become. Oh well, that’s gardening! My apologies for this photo - it has been stitched together so the edges are a little wonky. Everything started off well in the spring, but as time went on, the ornamental grasses died off, the asters were repeatedly eaten (by rabbits I assume), and the sedum receded instead of spreading and filling out. It’s an ongoing project.

Even though it’s no longer a garden gone wild, the name seems to have stuck. I’m obviously stuck on this garden and the owners seem to be stuck on me because they keep asking me to come back. (It’s good to be wanted!) This is the point where I’ll ask you to come back. There’s more fun stuff ahead and I’m looking forward to sharing what’s in store for the Garden Gone Wild.