On my Garden To Do list was a border on one of the front flower beds. But, I was not sure I would get to it this fall.
Masses of daisies in pans of water, needing to get in the ground ASAP, sped up my process.
On Wednesday night I dug an 18” (wide) border across one end of the bed. My husband pitched the icky dirt and roots into the kiddie pools as I dug. This allowed me to clean up a lot of junky ground. We will let the dirt dry. Then my husband will separate the dirt from the roots. The roots will go in the garbage and we will use the cleaned dirt to fill other places. (His knees prevent him from digging. My hands prevent me from ripping apart dried dirt clods.)
On Thursday morning, I fixed a few areas of the border and filled the 18” strip with new dirt. I buy good dirt from Lowe’s. (You can see how much more I dug, from the volume added to the pools.)
And then my mom divided the daisies and started planting. She used a ruler and did two tidy, alternating rows.
64 daisies later, a nice border.
I am appreciative of the gift. I also am glad she did not pitch all those daisies. A lot of gardeners with really big beds, end up pitching all kinds of plants.
I am super appreciative that she got me moving on this border. Because (knock on wood) next year I should have masses of daisies growing in this border.
If I find a before picture I will add it. This 18" swatch cleaned up a lot of nonsense on the edge of this bed.
And I plan to dig another 18" swatch behind this first one and add dirt, either yet this spring or first thing in the fall. Because I trimmed a lot of tree branches and I think the edge of this bed now gets enough sun that I can plant a massive border of Zinnias right behind the daisies. And that will be super pleasing.
My style of planting has evolved. I like masses of the same plant in an area. It has a lot to do with the fact that I have very large flower beds. Large amounts of the same plant in an area give the eye somewhere to settle. It is just more pleasing to my eye and feels calmer and tidier.
(But I do have one bed in the back where I have many different perennials all planted together. But they are all in pinks, purples, blues and dark reds. Blending colors helps in this garden that has more of an English look to it.)
