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Showing posts with the label turf removal

Natural Edge Dug For Front Porch Bed - June 2023

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On Monday, I posted about adding a series of perennials to our front porch beds - including Autumn Moor Grasses and eight Summer Beauty Alliums that are in front of some small Green Velvet Boxwoods (that I planted last month).   As I was planting those, I realized that the edge of the bed has crept-in and I needed to cut the grass that had been growing in there - out.   I've been thinking about the extension of the curved portion of the bed (where the Norway Maple tree *was* and have been musing about how to use some dry-stacked stone there and/or how the bed can be extended down the property line to (eventually) connect with the small, circular bed around the Saucer Magnolia.   But, for now....I decided to just simply clean the bed edge up and extend it out - just a little bit.  Here, below, is the 'after' - a natural edge like this makes the bed look that much more polished.  That (above) is the after.  Here, below is the 'before'.  Quite a change, right?  The Fr

Transplanted Lemon Coral Sedum to New Sidewalk Bed - September 2021

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A week ago, I finally had enough with a 'tough-to-grow-grass spot' in our front yard .  It a little section sandwiched on the ' in between two driveways ' island and right up against the sidewalk.  My thought was that part of the reason that the turf goes dormant here every Summer is because the heat radiates off the concrete on two sides and just dries the area out.  And, that's certainly part of it.  Not to mention that I don't water it enough.  But, last week, when I cut this new little bed in , I also discovered that there isn't much soil here.  Just a little bit of top soil - like an inch or two - followed by mostly gravel.   After I cut out the edge of this little bed and removed the turf, I ended up dumping a few bags of compost in the area to thicken up the area and provide a bit more organic material to allow for things to root in and (hopefully) grow.   I then looked around to see if I had any plant material on hand that I could transplant into thi

New Bed Near Sidewalk - Trouble Spot - September 2021

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A few days ago, I posted (once again) about the 'in between two driveways' part of our yard and talked about how the hot, Summer sun beats down part of the area so much so that I've had the grass go dormant every year.  In that post, I talked about taking on just a PART of the area - down by the sidewalk - which is the worst-hit portion of the turf each year.  My thinking was to convert this section to a bed and plant it with something a bit more drought-tolerant.    My longer-term thinking is to convert much of this section 'in between two driveways' to a long, linear bed with just a little bit of turf .  But, that's a big project requiring quite a bit of turf removal AND a lot of planting.   That means I'm going to start with a smaller section right now - and I started to carve out the bed last night.  Just to get the contours of the area that I want to transform, I removed the edge and will follow with removing the (now dormant) turf in the coming days.

2021 Area #3: Front Yard - Between Two Driveways (Priority or Not?)

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Back at the end of February, I published my 25 point "to do" list for the yard and garden for 2021 .  In that list, I included what I called two "priority areas" as #1 and #2.  The item in spot #3 was to work the area between the two driveways. The first two priority areas are in the backyard, but this one is in the front yard and I didn't label it as a priority area before I published the list, so I'm not sure I can now.  Instead, let's just call this"Between Two Driveways".    I mentioned it yesterday as a potential location for some transplanted peonies. This is a long, narrow strip that was - up until last fall - just turf with a very small Bald Cypress and a troubled Chanticleer Pear tree .  Our neighbors directly to the north of us have recently built their new house and moved in this past Fall.  As part of their new construction, they added a new driveway that runs parallel to ours - thus creating this long strip of land.  The Bald Cypr