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~My 2004 Gardens~ pg. 1

The spring and summer of 2004 was extremely busy for me. My son no longer lives at home and is no longer around to help me in my gardens. Because of being visually and physicially handicapped (bad heart) due to diabetes I didn't feel strong enough or able to see well enough to look after all the gardens I had. So I had to make a very hard decision; to cover over existing gardens and move plants from the backyard and side gardens into the front yard. That isn't to say that I don't still have gardens along the side and back of the house, cause I do, just not as many. *S*

I also needed to raise up the beds so that I would be able to see the plants better and be able to do the work myself. Also because our neighbours on one side are NOT gardeners by any stretch of the imagination, prickle weeds and all kinds of weeds were seeding on their property and the seeds were then finding their way into my gardens and of course did very well in my rich soil. So something had to be done so that I could still have gardens but be able to take care of them and have them look nice.

First came the pruning down of my beautiful roses and digging them up and putting them in pots until the garden was finished. My son helped me with the digging up of the roses and the lilac bush. I also had hostas and lily clumps that needed moving. There was a big clump of Royal Standard hosta that was only a couple years old, I made the mistake of trying to move it myself and it almost put me in the hospital as my heart didn't like me doing this. It must have weighed about 50lbs. I didn't know they could be so darn heavy! *L* So my son came and helped me with the heavy stuff. I had put some of the bigger hostas in green garbage bags and hoped they could survive until the front beds were made because the plants were too big for my biggest pots, 21" pots! This is some of them in garbage bags on the patio waiting to be planted.

Once I got all the plants out that I wanted to save I sprayed round up on everything else. All the quack grass that spreads via runners all over the place, all the forget me knots, even some lilies that I didn't have anymore space for.

Then our contractor, Tony came in and started to build the garden beds. The back beds are 20" high, 2ft front to back and different lengths. The beds in front, are 10" high, 18' from front to back and different lengths.

After we had the beds built and planted we put down newspapers and landscaping fabric for the paths and put 3/4" stone on top.

In the actual garden beds we filled the bottom with newspapers, cardboard and put peat moss, sheep manure and dirt, bags and bags of it. *L* On top I put landscaping fabric to help keep the weeds out and planted the beds, then put down mulch.

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This was the first step. The south end of the beds.

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This is a view of the east bed which is 16ft long and a few ft of the south beds.

AFTER

This is a close up of some of the plants. Clematis, lilies, top left, Regal Splendor hosta, petunias, irises. Bottom left is Daybreak hosta, Striptease hosta. As the hostas get older they will fill out and they can also change their leaf shape and texture depending on the variety.

This is also the east bed but facing the south part of the garden.




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