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| July 14, 2007 |
I had planted some shrubs and trees at the back of our lot, and then in late September 2007, Bluestone cut a long irregular border incorporating the existing plants, and filled it with soil, which slightly buried the plants that were already there. The sod was not removed first, the new soil was added on top.
The left (western) side is slightly raised. The right (eastern) side dips and it accumulates a lot of runoff and stays quite wet in winter and when it's rainy. The challenge is to find plants that thrive in the wet, heavier side, although the maple's roots will take a lot of the available moisture.
The maple tree's roots already dominate, making further planting difficult. And it will add a lot of shade in the coming years.
It's a difficult space to photograph since it stretches west to east about 35 feet, making it hard to see the whole garden from the front (i.e. from the house or patio). And it backs up to the meadow and hill, making the background of any shot just green weeds. The best photos are taken from the side of the garden.
In 2015, just waking up in spring, it looked like this:
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| 5/4/15 |
The left side in summer:
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| 6/22/15 |
And the right side, between the maple and the river birch:
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| 6/22/15 |
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| 11/17/15 |
Here is the history of the development of this garden after it was installed in 2007:
2008
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| August 17, 2008 |
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2009
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| May 25, 2009 |
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| June 27, 2009 |
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| August 7, 2009 |
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| September 6, 2009 |
2010
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| May 24, 2010 |
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| May 25, 2010 |
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| May 25, 2010 |
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| August 12, 2010 |
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| August 26, 2010 |
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| October 21, 2010 |
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| November 12, 2010 |
2011
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| May 24, 2011 |
In 2011 we expanded a small garden planting in front of the larger border, mimicing the curve of the front edge. The combined borders now form a whole garden, with a strip of grass between them.
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| Sept. 16, 2011 |
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July 1, 2012
Path between the two borders |
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August 6, 2012
The new area in front has a Forest Pansy redbud, the transplanted blueberry bushes, Russian sage, rosemary |
In this shot you can't see the front border, it is just off to the right. This shows the left (west) side of Meadow's Edge.
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| June 16, 2012 |
And here is the right side, the eastern end of Meadow's Edge, looking through the Russian sage and the blackhaw viburnum that are in the strip in front.
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| September 26. 2012 |
2013
Some notes on this garden after 6 years:
It's a great winter garden, which is good because it is what I see out the kitchen window in winter. Red winterberry holly berries, the bark of the river birch, the tawny grasses, and the evergreen hemlock and bayberry add interest in snow, as well as the standing birch twigs I added in a curve.
The red maple is now growing big enough to change this from an open sunny strip to shady and dry. The wet conditions on the right side are no longer.
The pretty white 'Miss Manners' physostegia disappeared this year. It had formed a nice clump but is gone now, along with the pink coneflowers that never did well, and I took out in previous years.
The doublefile viburnum that anchors the left side is a big, gorgeous stunner now. I am still battling all the day lilies I planted in this garden. Too many, too floppy, and I have dug out most but not all.
The garden in front of the big strip is now officially called the Blueberry Garden -- what a crop the four shrubs produced in 2013. The area is still new, coming along.
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| Meadow's Edge in Winter 2013 |
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| Winter 2013 |
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| May 12, 2013 |
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| May 18, 2013 |
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| June 1, 2013 |
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| August 15, 2013 |
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| November 1, 2013 |
2014
This garden keeps changing as the maple roots take over more and more. What was a wet sunny area is now dry from the root competition and increasingly shady.
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| May 4, 2014 |
The curved strip in front of the original Meadow's Edge garden is now being called the Blueberry Garden, anchored by the woodsy looking blueberries on the left. But it is hard to photograph them as separate spaces -- both planted areas form one combined garden really.
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| May 11, 2014 |
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| June 23. 2014 |
The large area under the maple and river birch is hard to plant now. It's mostly groundcovers that can succeed there (epimediums, fleeceflower and Weihenstephaner's Gold sedum). The original sundrops, white 'Miss Manners' obedient plant, red cardinal flowers and turtlehead all want more moisture and are petering out.
The perennials I am experimenting with tend to be mid size, and don't get much height. Nothing has any real visual punch.
So in August I added a structure, just a blue wood pyramid. I like how it does the job. It adds a little vertical shape and it adds some color that is seen from afar.
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| August 14, 2014 |
