You may have seen our post from last year about our huge flowerbed across half of the front yard. This year, we decided to complete the landscape by mirroring that addition across the central walkway to the other side of the yard. As I sit here on July 5th, I can say it’s been a resounding success, and we’re excited about the changes. Here’s why, what, and how we did it…
Why remove some lawn for more flowers?
First of all, why not?? Flowers are amazing, beautiful, vibrant living things, and who wouldn’t more of that in their lives? And…. yes, there are some other great reasons to do this, too. :) When you reduce your lawn, you can:
- Reduce the use of strong chemical lawn fertilizers and herbicides. Typical lawn fertilizer is high in nitrogen, which is usually created using fossil fuels (methane/natural gas, primarily). Many homeowners over-fertilize their lawns, and the excess runs off into storm sewers or ditches that eventually drain to creeks, rivers, and lakes, causing nutrient overloads that harm the aquatic ecosystem. Also, the popular “weed & feed” products contain herbicides that selectively kill broad-leaved weeds, and these too can wash into waterways and kill aquatic plants.
- Reduce the amount of lawn mowing, which also often involves gasoline-powered motors generating significant pollution (and noise). Also, see my post about human-powered lawn tools for more ideas about alternatives.
- Improve the availability of pollen and nectar for bees, hummingbirds, and other beneficial creatures who need flowers.
- Reduce water usage. This can be done by choosing flowers that are less thirsty than grass, but I have to admit this isn’t a feature of my garden. I’m watering the flowerbeds with the same sprinklers that water the lawn, so I haven’t reduced water usage by doing this.
- Be the talk of the town (or at least the neighborhood). Who doesn’t want to be a maverick garden badass? :)
Take a look at garden author Emily Murphy’s blog for a great article with more on this, including the benefits of re-wilding. BTW, she’s a great resource for garden inspiration on Instagram, too.
What and how?
OK, let’s get down to it, letting the photos tell much of the story:
To start off, we had a corner by the central walkway that was already a bed for some disappointing roses. It took some work to dig up the roots, as they were probably 20 or more years old. See photo #2 above with me and the pick-axe. Good times!
We laid out a hose to create the curve where the lawn meets the new flowerbed. Hoses are great for this, because they help you keep your curves gradual, flowing, and graceful. We dug out the sod along that curve to make a good edge to the bed, but rather than dig out all the sod, we placed wet cardboard over the grass between there and the sidewalk. We made sure to overlap the seams well so the pesky Bermuda grass has fewer opportunities to grow back through the new bed.
We ordered several cubic yards of a garden topsoil mix (compost, sand, and soil) from a local landscaping materials yard, plus a smaller amount of straight compost to be used as a top dressing. We probably could have done without the compost top dressing, as it was such fine stuff that it didn’t create the mulchy topping we wanted, and we eventually decided to mulch the top with bark.
We piled the topsoil over the cardboard, and I walked all over it to create some compaction. We then topped with an inch or so of the compost and began planting. See the photo of the plants in the back of the vehicle below? That’s what several hours and $300+ of plant shopping looks like when you get it home! It seemed like a lot more stuff when we were at the nursery! Well, when we added some seedlings we’d been growing at home and a few more nursery trips, it’s turned out great. Here are some photos of many of the new plants:
Plant choices and spacing
Much of this flowerbed is shaded at least part of the day by the large maple tree on this side of the front yard, so we needed to experiment with plants that can handle a lot more shade than the huge flowerbed on the other side of the yard. But some of it gets full sun. That’s not a problem in picking plants, but it may create a few issues with watering, since they’re all on the same sprinkler valve. We’ll keep watching to see if the water is adequate for the shade plants and the ones in the sun.
Overall, it took about 120 plants to fill this flowerbed in. My best guess is that this area is about 180 square feet, so it turns out to be about one plant per 1.5 square feet. That’s partly because many of these are large or spreading plants, so there is a bit of space between them that won’t be there after this first season. If this were a smaller flowerbed, often viewed up close, we’d do more than one per square foot. Anyway, here is the complete inventory (can you tell I like spreadsheets?) of what we planted:
| # | Botanical Name | Common Name |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Abutilon ‘Cristina’ | Flowering maple |
| 1 | Abutilon ‘Painted Bells’ | Flowering maple |
| 1 | Abutilon ‘Tiger Eye’ | Flowering maple |
| 2 | Aquilegia | Columbine |
| 2 | Arctotis ‘Pumpkin Pie’ | Arctotis; African daisy |
| 1 | Asclepias curassavica ‘Silky Gold’ | Tropical milkweed; Silky Gold milkweed |
| 1 | Brachyscome ‘Enduring Blue’ | Swan River daisy |
| 2 | Cordyline australis ‘Burgundy Spire’ | Red Dracaena palm |
| 1 | Cosmos atrosanguineus | Chocolate cosmos |
| 32 | Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Sensation’ | Cosmos ‘Sensation’ |
| 5 | Delosperma nubigenum | Miniature iceplant; hardy iceplant |
| 3 | Delphinium elatum | Larkspur |
| 3 | Echinacea purpurea | Purple coneflower |
| 2 | Erigeron karvinskianus | Santa Barbara daisy |
| 2 | Evolvulus ‘Blue My Mind’ | Dwarf morning glory |
| 2 | Fuchsia ‘Aretes Upright Jollies Nantes’ | Fuchsia, upright shrub type |
| 5 | Gaillardia grandiflora | Indian blanket flower |
| 1 | Gaura lindheimeri ‘Belleza Light Pink’ | Gaura |
| 16 | Gazania ‘Sunburst Purple’ | Gazania |
| 3 | Heliotropium ‘Fragrant Delight’ | Heliotrope |
| 3 | Heuchera ‘Marmalade’ | Coral bells |
| 1 | Hibiscus syriacus ‘Chateau de Versailles’ | Rose of Sharon; deciduous hibiscus |
| 3 | Lavandula angustifolia | English lavender |
| 2 | Lavatera tauricensis | Crimean lavatera |
| 5 | Leucanthemum x superbum | Shasta Daisy |
| 2 | Lotus berthelotii ‘Amazon Sunset’ | Lotus vine; parrot’s beak |
| 3 | Mudkenia rossii ‘Crimson Fans’ | Red-leafed mudkenia |
| 3 | Nephrolepis cordifolia duffii | Lemon Button fern |
| 2 | Phygelius | Cape fuchsia ‘Colorburst Deep Red’ |
| 1 | Polemonium viscosusm ‘Blue Whirl’ | Sky pilot |
| 1 | Salvia microphylla ‘Killer Cranberry’ | Salvia; sage |
| 3 | Salvia ‘Victoria Blue’ | Salvia; sage |
| 1 | Thuja plicata ‘Whipcord’ | Whipcord western red cedar |
| 1 | Tiarella ‘Sylvan Lace’ | Tiarella; foam flower |
| 1 | Verbena ‘Lanai Vintage’ | Verbena |
| 2 | Verbena ‘Tapien’ | Verbena |
Whew! That actually IS a lot of plants! And now, to show you how it all turned out a few months after building and planting the bed, check out this garden walkaround video I did last week. This new flowerbed starts at about 3:30 if you want to skip to it:
Irrigation
What you don’t see here is the irrigation setup. We used the existing sprinkler system, which included three sprinklers along the sidewalk. I added some piping to move the middle one to be more centered, and I replaced the sprinkler bodies with deeper, longer pop-ups that create the necessary height to spray over the bermed soil and plants.