‘Accidental’ Flowerbed

Accidents happen, even in gardening. Once, I miscalculated the amount of soil amendment for our garden and got too much of it . After its biggest portion was spread on the lawn, under the hedges and on the flowerbeds, the remaining part was moved from the driveway to the ugly part of the lawn behind the house.

B e f o r e

I planned to move the mix somewhere fast so that we wouldn’t kill the grass we dumped it on. Well, that was the plan. In reality, the pile stayed there for several months. It became clear that the grass under it was gone. After lengthy consideration, I took a shovel, outlined the edges of the pile, and got myself a new flowerbed.

I’ve been told that the nutritious value of the mix probably got low by then. So, I didn’t have big hopes and considered it as a temporary home for newly bought plants and divisions of existing plants.

To make a long and boring story short, this is what I had at the beginning of this summer:

A f t e r

I move everything here that I don’t know where else to plant. It’s kind of a nursery. Some plants are here temporarily, until I find a permanent place for them. (Although, who doesn’t know that there is nothing more permanent than temporary?)

Grasses, hostas and heucheras love it here. They have part shade and consistently moist soil.

Smaller pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them

Ligularia was the real winner. Two of them were sitting in pots for three or four years (I know, I know, it was cruel to hold them there!). Several weeks after I moved one of them to the pile, new bed, it became clear that the ligularias should be free!

Yellow blooms are lovely, although not my favorite color. What I love the most about ligularia are its leaves that are glossy when young.

Next to the ligularia picture is the picture of Bowles’ Golden grass in bloom. Variegated Japanese sedge grass is also doing great here.

Alliums, poppies, rose, tradescantia and heuchera blooms add colorful happy spots to this place.

Rain Gardener Gardening By Trial And Error and Grace (Gardening With Grace) commented on these heucheras in my August post Containers In My Garden. Thank you, ladies, for noticing! In this bed, I have H.Caramel, H.Beaujolais, H. Velvet Night and one more type, green-leaved, which I can’t recall the name of.

On the pictures above, did you see a huge foxglove growing right in the middle of the Hakonechloa grass? It’s a volunteer foxglove. I probably needed to remove it when it just appeared, but the plant looked so healthy and big, I am curious what flowers will it produce next year. I hope the hakonechloa will survive. There are several of them on this bed, and they thrive in the part shade.

Plants which didn’t grow well in other parts of the garden seem to be recovering here. For example, knock-out rose and East Indian Holly fern that, before I moved them here, were suffering in dry soil. The only plant which didn’t survive here was Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium). It was probably my fault – it wasn’t the right spot for sun-loving grass. Too much moisture during last winter didn’t help either.

There is only one bad thing about this bed. Do you see a row of fir trees behind it? The trees didn’t miss a trick and sent their roots into the pile for nutrients and water. I cut these new roots from time to time when I dig holes for plants, but it’s clear who will be the winner. I just hope that the firs won’t suffocate my plants.

Even now, in October, the Accidental bed looks good. In the future, I plan to add a focal point to it, maybe, a little tree.

Plants are not shown in the pictures: Brunnera, Euonymus Canadale Gold, Euphorbia, Cape Fuchsia and some groundcovers.

I bet some accidents happened in your garden too!

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Copyright 2010 TatyanaS