Spring Fever–the front garden bed (an involved project)

When we bought this house, one of the first things that we did was to spray weed and grass killer on areas around the house to create garden beds. There was grass (weeds) in this front bed, which made no sense to me because it would be such a pain in the butt to mow. We planted a beautiful Japanese maple in it. The tree grew well until last year when I noticed that the tree’s leader had died.

Over the summer, more branches died, and I cut the tree down. So now we have a completely empty garden bed. The wall on the left is the garage wall, and it is really long. I have considered growing a vine on a support structure to cover this wall. What I have decided to do instead, is to get two Brown Turkey fig trees and espalier them on the wall; build a stone pad in the center of the garden to set my bird bath on (because I can see the birds playing in it from my kitchen window); and fill the rest of the bed with strawberries.

I am going to pick up the fig trees tomorrow, because I want to make sure I find two that are similar size and have a good branching structure for what I want to do. I am not going to plant them yet because it is supposed to get into the teens for lows this weekend and figs are cold sensitive which is why I am putting them against a south facing wall. I will need Mike’s help to attach the trees to the wall, but before we can do that, we need to clean the inside corner and limewash it again to fix where the water and dirt have splashed up on it.

As a first step, Jackson and I dug around what was left of the Japanese maple so that we could remove as much of the roots as possible. We removed more soil than necessary because we really need to amend the soil for the strawberries which prefer a much sandier soil than what is currently there. We will add landscape mix from our local bulk supplier of soils, mulches, stones, etc.

I will put in edging for the stone pad, fill the area with paver base and ensure that it is level and tamp it down, then place flagstone on the paver base, and fill between the cracks with polymeric sand to hold the stones in place. Then the bird bath will go there.

I can’t get too carried away with this project until our gutter contractor does some work on the gutters–the water is overshooting the gutters and landing in this bed, especially at the inside corner. I expect them to be here this week or next.

I will do posts as I complete sections of this project. Wish me luck!