Border Patrol

I needed to divide my perennials this year--many of them. I planned to take some divisions to the garden club plant sale, but kept eyeing my neighbors' south side as a possible "new home" for many of those three-year old perennials that needed a sunny, dry spot.  Their south side is along the garage and slopes steeply toward the cliff we both perch upon.  On the lower level of their house, there are no windows, but our deck and living room look out onto this slope. The landscaper doesn't do anything to kill the weeds and it's very dry, and therefore dusty, in the summer in this area.  I primed my "garden man" for several weeks to dig a bed (remove what little sod there was and a whole lot of weeds)--a terrible job.  And last weekend we did it!

After removing the sod and weeds, we added manure and Miracle-Gro Garden Weed Preventer to the border. It could only be three feet wide due to our community landscaping guidelines, but it was going to hide the cement foundation and a utility meter as it matured.  Bonnie and Roy already had some plants for the lower slope: swamp milkweed, tickseed, and groundcover phlox to spread down over the stone wall. We planted these around their red azaleas and the "extra" hydrangea we planted nearby last fall.  We added a stepping stone of local rock we dug up last year when putting the hydrangea in place.  We placed some more local rock to create a rain gully at her downspout. And pulled nearer a stepping stone from their pathway garden along the fenceline to link the two gardens.

Then we started planting the border "up the hill" with some divisions from my garden.  In front of the yellow and purple old-fashioned iris I divided and transplanted last fall, we transplanted some Shasta daisies, coneflowers, and black-eyed Susans.  Further up the hill, Bonnie had a bright orange-yellow tickseed which should do well in the sun, heat and dry soil of the south border.  At the crest of the hill, I transplanted some sedum ground cover, artemesia or white sage, more daisies and black-eyed Susans and some Creeping Jenny groundcover behind and under the meter. With a good layer of mulch Bonnie and I picked up at Lowe's called Premium Brown (recommended by the landscaper as matching what he put down earlier in the existing landscape beds), we had a great bed started. 

A week of several wet, rainy days helped the plants off to a good beginning--and today in the heat another soaker assured the plants of "wet feet" as they enter their second week in new soil.  It was hot, dirty, back-breaking work, but the results of our "south border patrol" will be enjoyed for a long time by us! Thanks, neighbors, for letting us use some of your space to beautify our environment.

Maybe we can continue up the hill next year...  I have some Montauk daisies, Russian sage and yarrow I need to divide next year.  You know, it never ends! 

But now my garden is less crowded and could be mulched...