Flower Garden Makeover

As an apprentice many years ago I worked under an old fellow who when we were working at one of the several large country houses (in England) that had beautiful gardens would say “I like to see a nice garden ........ but I sure don’t like doing it!”. I must admit to agreeing with him for most of my life but now quite enjoy 'puddling around' in the garden but I still sure don’t like battling with overgrown flower beds or persistent twitch grass coming up in those beds that I have managed to keep reasonably tidy.

 The Jungle

With the above in mind we are ripping out two of our original perennial flower beds, splitting and potting the plants as we find them in the 'jungle' and will be making a whole new bed to accommodate them but this time with a few changes. Its going to be a 'pot' garden, the flowers will remain in the pots and be surrounded by a 4” or so layer of stone, sort of a cross between these two gardens....

The Plan

I have one major addition to this idea though, I am casting a number of concrete 'pot holders, bottomless concrete tubes that the pots will sit in that will sit level with the top of the stone layer. This will permit the ready exchange of those pots of plants that are done flowering, are not doing well or need weeding or TLC with others from the Green House or from our 'growing on' holding area. I could use large clay tiles (if I could find any) but even clay tiles will deteriorate over time and have to be dug out and replaced so I am going with a one time and done concrete surround.

Salvaged plants & Pot holders

Its a lot of work now with, I hope, a weed free maintenance free lazy mans garden emerging. The only real challenge right now is deciding upon the garden edging, I think we will be going with a brick border with plastic roll edging inside them to stop 'grass creep' into the bed. More to come as we get it done, don’t hold your breath expecting to see the finished project anytime soon, I may be doing much more looking than doing in memory of the old tradesman who is now looking down upon those 'nice gardens'.