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New flower garden on mild clay slope

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
We've been living in our house for 13+ years and have some spots in our yard that have NEVER been able to grow any reasonable amount of grass. One area is a mildly sloped area along a fence line that has been an absolute eyesore for us.

I spoke with a landscape designer and he suggested sod. We tried sod in the past. It simply didn't work.

So we went to some of the local garden centers and bought a bunch of plants, we also divided up a bunch of our hostas from other parts of the property and got started. I tilled the area, which is about 50' long and roughly 20' at its widest point, but tapering to a blunt point. After tilling the hard packed clay I picked up several scoops of compost and added them to the area, tilled again to mix the hard clay with the compost and then put the landscape rake on the tractor to smooth out the area.

Using concrete "wall stones" from the big box store I laid out a border . . . well I laid out about 4/5ths of a border. I'll have to make another trip to the store for about 20-25 more of the stones. I sank them down so the mower deck can be set on top of them and that will eliminate the need to weed-whack the edge.

We still need more plants, lots more plants, but the job is done for the day and we are now relaxing for the evening. Near the narrow 'point' of the garden there will be some purple cone flowers added, as well as more of the white edge hostas to fill in that area. Not sure what we will be using to fill in the area where I need to finish the border. We hope to have all the plants in place by the end of this week, and then mulch over the whole area with bark.

Any suggestions on what to put under/around the little crab apple tree?
 

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DaveNay

Klaatu barada nikto
SUPER Site Supporter
Wow Bob....that whole area needs work!
 

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Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Dave that is a REALLY OLD photo, probably 8 or 10 years? I modified the photo a bit, the red line is the decorative aluminum fence that borders the new planting area. The yellow area on the photo is roughly the area where the new plantings exist. On the opposite side of the red line is the yard area we completely relandscaped about 2 years ago.
 

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