quick garden creation, part one: front garden

With a thrilling new and empty lot (well, it did have a house and shed on it) to fill and a sense that time was not on my side, I scheduled one week off in November to make the front garden, followed by a two month long staycation in December and January to create the back garden.  I knew we would be fighting some bad weather and also that Allan might have priorities other than making the garden (such as arranging the shed exactly to his liking and visiting with his dad in Seattle).  Thus the garden creation went on in all but the worst of weather.

8 November, front garden

My first priority (no, sorry, Charlie Diehl, having the garage roof refurbished comes after the garden!!) was to create the front garden by digging out the sod and adding good soil so that I could immediately plant shrubs and perennials from my old garden and an assortment of bulbs from my annual Van Engelen bulb order.

14 November, front garden

The sod turned out to be surprisingly hellish to remove, and after the first day of me cutting the strips out with the half moon edger, Allan emerged from the house with a pick and helped me get the strips removed.  The soil, while much lighter than the clay of my old garden, was compacted by years of residence.  (Before the double wide, an old house sat on almost the same footprint.)

We also dug out beds on the east side of the house and in front of the old shed; in this shady spot Allan planned to transplant the shady plants from his back yard plot at the old garden.

14 November, east side garden

21 November, east side garden

I had ordered my first load of soil energy mulch from Peninsula Landscape Supply and with the help of Allan and a couple of hours from a friend,  got it spread over both the front and east side gardens, using up the entire 12 yards.

soil energy, load one of four

from shed to gate, 8 November

from shed to gate, 14 November

With the front and side garden beds in place and some plants moved from the old garden, we turned our attention back to paid gardening work until early December….when the lure of creating the back gardens here was so strong that we sort of let work fizzle out before completely finishing the fall cleanups…Oh well, garden writer Ann Lovejoy often advised leaving gardens “up” till late winter to provide bird habitat!

My plan for the back garden was a method that would make part two of garden creation go much more quickly.