garden space

I made a new garden bed, and redid the oldest one.

First, outlined a new space against the stump that used to be a wild cherry tree (sad, but it was rotting. Heart of the base eaten up by something, leaves dying and branches coming down all the time). Layered it with cardboard to smother the grass. Then it got filled up with shredded leaves and garden soil and compost.

The longest, oldest garden bed I have is problematic because I can't reach the back of it, and am loathe to step on the soil. So I dug two short trenches to divide it into three beds with paths between them horizontal to the house wall. Picture of the work-in-progress with scrap wood laid out in pieces.

Overhead shot of all the garden- new stone-edged bed on the upper left, work-in-progress on the right. This old bed was also taller than it needed to be, so I removed the top rail of the makeshift wall, cut it into smaller pieces, and made new sides for the shorter paths. Shows how strong my first garden bed wall was, that it was difficult to take apart! In some places I gave up trying to undo nails or screws, and just used a saw to separate things. These new garden bed edges are even better made- at least, I had a better idea what I was doing. And someday I will redo the entire thing properly, with nice cedar planks. Someday.

I had a bag of sand sitting around and poured that over the little paths, before filling them in with mulch (from the old cherry tree- it actually smelled heavenly when they were shredding it up).

Seen from one side now my garden looks a bit quaint with the stone edges.

From the other side it is much tidier, with wooden corners.

In the middle there are still some rather unattractive, makeshift parts. But I hope it will be so full of lush plants, nobody will notice what the boundaries are made of. And I do want to find something that can grow tall and climb on that blank white wall- without its roots stealing from the garden plants...