Something about spring, sap rising, weather warming, things blooming, birds singing, grass-greening, and a long history of hole-digging-therapy inspired me to get started on that empty spot across the front of my house. We have lived in this location for over thirty years... and I have yet to plant anything in the space between the house and the concrete apron of the driveway. For years, I assumed if I was patient, grass would eventually grow to fill it in an attractive carpet. Wrong.(The moral to that story is that when you neglect your lawn: you get a neglected lawn. Which is actually o.k with me as I see no reason to put out fertilizer on the grass when all it really does is cause work, as the resulting growth means you have to mow it more often.)
About a year ago, after months and months of pondering, I spent some money having several truck loads of dirt moved onto the space that was hard, impervious, non-nutritious red clay. I did not realize it at the time, but see now that what I was doing was creating a 'raised bed'. It is so difficult for anything of consequence to be successful in what was left after the contractor scraped off all the topsoil before starting to build - it takes lots of amending, encouragement, busted shovels (I have three that are so broken as to be un-usable), occasional swearing, sweat to get desire-ables to grow. So the topsoil that we added, mounded up across that 8 x 25 foot space is actually what I have been planting in.
I pondered for all this time, since last spring, after covering the dirt with pine straw, what would be best to put in the new 'bed' that would be essentially care-free. I have always been of the mindset that 'I dug the hole, and put the plant in the ground. That's my contribution. So Mr. Plant: you are on your own'. (This theory does not apply to tomato plants that I have uselessly watered, nourished, attended, talked-to, cared for over many summers with only marginal success). And finally concluded the things that are growing elsewhere around here are obviously going to continue to survive with minimal attention.
Instead of investing in nursery plants, or some expert who would come up with a plan for planting that I would feel compelled to follow due to expense, I decided to just relocate all the hardy survivors that are already living here in the hard, indifferent red clay. I have enriched the topsoil with organic stuff, vermiculite, osmocote to feed new root systems, and moved lots of things that seemed to thrive on neglect to strategically planned holes along the driveway. I'd thought abut the 'Nothing But Natives' route, but they are so expensive when bought as nursery stock, and not always successful to transplant from pots into natural environment. Spending the money to buy something that died would make me... sad? frustrated? annoyed? broke?
So I decided on very 'local' perennials. Tough, hardy, proven bloomers, reliable, and cheap! Timing has been great, with good rains in the past couple of days to make all the transplants happy. There are some more things I will rearrange in the next few days, and hope to get it done before Easter. But I am down to my last shovel and hope that it will hold out until I can get the big things dug up and settled into new locations. Discovering that Wally-world, Ace Hardware, Tractor Supply, local independents only have shovels with no sharp edge. So we can assume that the Chinese who make and ship them are thinking: we might hurt ourselves with sharp objects? I am excessively annoyed at the idea of spending $30 on a shovel, then devoting hours and elbow grease to sharpening it with a file just to make it actually useable.
I'm pretty impressed .. it's looking good. I have bales of fresh pine straw I will put out when all the planting is done, to finish it off. Looking forward to seeing what happens when all those things that seem to thrive on neglect will do when they get a little attention/affection and decent dirt to grow in.
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