More Front Yard Bed Extension - Island Bed - Priority 3 - March 2025

Two days ago, I posted some photos showing the first step in the 'lazy bed extension' around our island bed in the front yard.  This was one of my priority projects for the year - #3.  I started with laying down cardboard to smother out the grass along the driveway.  That section went about twelve feet by three-feet wide.  

For step two in this process, I went with filling-in the stretch of grass between the sidewalk back to the (current) island bed.  This section is about five-feet deep by twelve feet long.  I laid down two layers of cardboard with a slight overlap (both overlapped between the two of them and overlapped with the first layer on the driveway side).  I wet it down with the hose.  Then, topped with municipal biosolids.  And, finally...a layer of other organic yard material (leaves, grass clippings, etc) on top.  I mixed those together and used my hose again to wet it all together.  

Below are a couple of shots showing the cardboard and biosolids next to the (on the right) first strip already converted to bed and (at the top) the existing island bed.

And, here below is the final, dressed bed.  You can see the cut-up grass reeds and the cut-up/cut-down leaves and other garden material on top:

There's still more grass that needs to be converted to round out this bed, but I now have the two biggest, most-critical sections covered.  That means the clock can start on smothering the grass and the countdown to planting can begin:  four-to-six weeks from now, these beds will be ready.  

I'll widen out both the backside and the interior border in the next few days/weeks - once I get enough cardboard.  

While the photos from the sidewalk show what appears to be a MASSIVE new bed, when I look out from the porch, here (below) is the view.  The new bed is on the left.

Compare the current state (above) to this photo (below) from this post showing how I wanted to build a front yard path with a split bed along the sidewalk.   The line (in the photo below) is right about where the current island bed stops.  

When I annotated *that* photo (with the path drawn) and add the expanded island bed (light red) and the Austrian Green Oregon Pine (orange).  In light blue is a potential "lazy bed" and purple is an even bigger (potential) "lazy bed" that can be a Fall project.   I'm thinking something like this upright conifer and Stachys Hummelo combo.