Last minute landscaping
Posted on September 2nd, 2008 – 8:24 AMBy Jaime Chismar
Spring, I am all about the veggie garden. Fall, as the last of my tomatoes and peppers ripen on the vine, I’m all about last minute landscaping.
I’m not disorganized. In fact, I have lots of plans in my head — I just have trouble choosing what plan to actually implement.
Sound familiar?
All summer, I’ve wanted to put a rain garden in my boulevard and I wanted to do it on the cheap. When my friends first learned about my project, they eagerly shared their flowers and grasses. Two months later, our small patio was full of plants in makeshift containers. It was time to call in my secret weapon — My dad, the self-described “Uber Chiz.”
We Chismars are happiest when we are covered in sweat and dirt. I was grateful, but not surprised, when he drove up — thirty minutes early on a Sunday morning — with three different kinds of shovels and an extra wheelbarrow in his SUV. Wearing his hat and gardening gloves, he could hardly wait for the coffee to brew.
My dad is 60, but he can dig twice as fast as his 32 year-old daughter. It took us only two hours to clean out the boulevard, but it took me another two weeks to plant and find free mulch.
Little blue stem, echinacea, black-eyed susan and soap flower — It’s not much now, but it’s a start. Maybe I’ll border the bed with some sedum I should’ve transplanted last year or some blue fescue seeds I bought back in June.
Or maybe… I’ll wait until next spring to decide…
Do you do some of your best gardening in your head? What projects have you procrastinated this summer? What projects do you have earmarked for next year?
14 Responses to "Last minute landscaping"
[…] Originally published by Greengirls […]
Your boulevard rain garden looks great! Bully for you and Uber Chiz!
I put in a hand-me-down garden in my boulevard two years ago and even I have to admit it’s doing extrememly well. I never weed, rarely water. My secret to success? Lots of compost and free, Minnesota-hardy plants from very generous gardeners.
next year: continue converting boulevard grass to garden, as you’re doing here. On our corner lot, we’ve converted about 50 ft and have another 50, give or take, to go. Give me two more years….
I actually wish I had waited until fall to plant my boulevard garden. I did it in the spring and then went out of town in July and half my stuff fried up. It’s in embarrassing condition right now. I think I’ll just topdress it with compost and see ya next year… I give up.
(But I do have one last project for 2008 - bulbs!)
I’m enjoying my boulevard garden, but didn’t dig it down deep enough so have to water a lot.
I have a 7foot tall patch of what I believe is grey coneflower (yellow flowers). A cool trick I discovered to keep it from looking overly weedy is to strip the leaves off the bottom half of the stems. So the flower effect is up top, and below is somewhat of a bonsai thing that doesn’t interfere with what’s planted beneath.
Can I borrow your Dad?!?!
My boulevard needs some love too. Maybe next year, but yours sure does inspire me!
Excuse me butting in, but as a Brit I was curious - “boulevard” is what you call the grass verge on your part of the sidewalk?
montims,
Boulevard refers to the grass verge (as you call it) on the street side of the sidewalk. A homeowner is required to maintain it, but because of safety concerns, municipalities can limit the height of plants or the kinds of materials used in a boulevard.
First, I still haven’t planted a front-yard garden, though every year I plan to.
Where I grew up in northeast Ohio, the strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk was called the “devil strip.”
No, I am not making this up. It’s in the online urban dictionary, but it’s clearly a regionalism.
Entire columns have been written trying to explain it to people who see it on city signage.
http://www.mrexcel.com/devilstrip.html
Needless to say, I was quite confused when I moved here and heard people talking about boulevard gardens. In my mind, boulevards are tree-lined streets, usually with large areas of grass separating lanes of traffic, like on sections of Summit Avenue in St. Paul. (The dictionary backs me up on this one.)
But I’ll stop parsing words and just enjoy everyone else’s boulevard gardens. Besides, planting a “devil strip garden” just sounds wrong. Very, very wrong.
And Jaime, your dad reminds me of my dad. He lives far away, and when he visits, he fills the time with trips to Home Depot and home-improvement projects. Last time he was here I lost track of the projects.
Hooray for helpful and handy dads.
A devil strip? How kooky! Guess that means I’ve got a devil strip garden. . .
. . . and, no, Jaime, a devil strip is not certain style of bikini wax.
Hooray for helpful dads.. and friends who give you free plants… and neighbors who indulge your “eccentricities.”
Where did you get the free mulch???
Greengirls Connie Nelson, Robyn Dochterman and Jaime Chismar are dishin' the dirt from the backyard garden and beyond. Whether you're a greenthumb or greenhorn, they're eager to learn from your misshaps, mistakes -- and most importantly, your sweet successes -- all growing season long.
Need more Greengirls? Follow along on Twitter:
Subscribe to Greengirls
Learn more about RSS
Garden resources
Categories
- Apples, Plums + Tree fruits (18)
- Asparagus (3)
- Beans + Peas (9)
- Bees (12)
- Beets, Carrots + Root veggies (7)
- Berries (10)
- Books + Resources (13)
- Chickens (13)
- Compost (7)
- Container gardening (7)
- Corn (2)
- Critters + vermin (27)
- Cucumbers + Melons (15)
- Farmer's Markets (1)
- Flowers + Grasses (27)
- Garlic (5)
- Greens + Lettuces (10)
- Herbs (6)
- Lawn care (12)
- Mulch (7)
- Mystery plants (9)
- Potatoes (9)
- Preserving (7)
- Rain gardens (2)
- Seed starting (16)
- Soil care (4)
- Squashes + gourds (1)
- Succulents (2)
- Tomatoes, Peppers + Eggplant (38)
- Tools, gloves, rain barrels + more (17)
- Transplanting (1)
- Tree + shrub care (4)
- Uncategorized (164)
- Water gardens (3)
- Weather woes (25)
- Weeds (13)
- Weekend to-dos (11)