Friday, August 19, 2011

Flower bed -- Phase 1

A blog debut -- for the flowerbed and my parents who helped, layout, plan, grow plants, and install (yeah, that's just about everything).

Remember when the flower bed out front used to look something like this (with the pine tree on the left).


Then we removed the tree HERE and worked on the new flower bed and now it looks like THIS!

This is just the start of a much larger flower bed (I'm guessing 1/3 of the front yard) that will significantly reduce my lawn mowing time.

First we had to make several trips to Lowe's to buy pine bark nuggets.  They are more eco-friendly than traditional mulch and we won't need to reapply every year.  Plus, they look great!

Rocks, rocks, and more rocks!  This monster took several hours of digging and waiting for Andy's muscle power to get home.  If you look at the finished picture you will see it sitting in the bed.  We took several wheelbarrow loads of rocks back to the woods, but this one was staying put.

Some iris that need replanted and a sad looking hosta that a deer ate for dinner.

Once my parents planted the plants we got to work on putting down a layer of newspaper 6 sheets thick.  It will kill the grass and help keep the weeds out.

Then you wet the newspaper...

And lay the mulch.


Place the rock and apply some of the smelliest deer repellent known to man.  No joke, this stuff smells like a combination of something dead and vomit.  Really, really disgusting.  But we'll try anything to keep the deer away while the plants are young.  Keep your fingers crossed that I don't have to create another post showing how the deer ate everything. 

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