Anyone who likes gardening read this post (and everyone else can read it too of course) I'm going to be asking for your opinion and advice! As I've mentioned before we live in an apartment. It has it's pros and cons.
Pros: We don't have to remove our own snow, or mow the lawn, if anything breaks we aren't responsible for replacing it.
Cons: We can't make any changes, not even paint the walls, sharing a wall with noisy neighbors, small storage spaces.
One nicer thing about this apartment compared to our last one is this one has a little "garden spot" by our front door. Towards the beginning of the summer our manager was here and I asked him if we were allowed to plant our own stuff there. He said we could do whatever we wanted there and he even came back later and gave me an awesome pot I could use. I didn't end up doing anything with the "garden" this summer, it has been to insanely busy. Things have finally slowed down, so today I decided to tackle it. I didn't plant anything, but just cleaned it up. I have no idea what the people who lived here before were thinking, it was a confusing mess.
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Random rocks and bricks going about half way down the area and then sparse grass. This is after I'd pulled out the grass from in between the rocks and bricks. I decided to keep the bricks as an edger and just dig up all the grass to extend the garden all the way to the wall. It didn't take too long, the dirt is soooooooooooooo wet! I don't even want to call it dirt, we'll call it mud. They turn the sprinklers on everyday and we only get a few hours of sun a day because there's another building on the other side of us. It stays wet pretty much all day. After I got all the rock/bricks and grass out-
Tada! It already looks so much better! To finish things off I just took the extra bricks and placed them as an edger along the grass line. Here we are about an hour later-
Now doesn't that look terrific?? And less than an hour off work. I have done A LOT of gardening in my life, but it was just under the direction of my mother. I don't really know much about what kinds of plants work well in different types of environments. So here is where I'm asking for help from all of you who are experienced gardeners. Even if you're not experienced gardeners and this just prompted a google search because you were curious, I'd love to know what you found. I need to know what types of plants will work well in wetter soil and that don't need too much sunlight. I'd like a mixture of both flowery and leafy plants. Also I'm wondering if there is anything that I can plant this year or if I'm going to have to wait until next year to plant everything. One more thing, do you all think it would look better if I widened the area so it goes out to the wall or just keep it in line with the step? I'd love to hear any suggestions you may have!
P.S. Does anyone know how to get my stupid header centered?
3 comments:
Oboy! What a fun project! It looks great so far! If you wanted the plants to come back every year you could plant hostas, bleeding hearts, columbine, (I think these would be too big for the space though). Vinca minor is a neat groundcover that could look good and I would think would do well. You could plant this now. First thing I thought of was impatients. You will have to wait until next spring to plant these though. They love wetter soil and shade! They come in all shades of pink...which I think you would love and would look brilliant.Coleus is another option. It is a foliage plant vs. flowering plant but it has real funky leaves. There are tons of different varieties and colors. Make sure whatever you plant you mix in a couple of bags of mulch with your existing soil...it makes all the difference and use PREEN it cuts out on a lot of weeding time. And always remember gardening is all about trial and error (finding homes where plants are happy :)
Looks great so far can't wait to see it in the spring! Good Luck!
Do it wider it's super small. Are you wanting to grow food at all or just flowers? If you're growing plants I'd think twice about PREEN. It is great for keeping weeds away but everything I've read about pesticides and herbicides, they're not good for the ecosystem and you don't want it in your body.
Also, since you don't get a lot of sun plant shade plants. Like megs said hostas are great and hardy!
Becca,
Hosta would work very well. You can get it in green, varigated, or what they call "blue" varieties. I think the blue is still pretty green, but it makes a nice contrast. All of them have light purple or white flowers. Hosta does well is shade and wet. And it's a perenial so it will come back year after year. You can plant it now (if you can find it) and then have lovely things growing in the spring.
The impatients and coleus that have already been suggested are annuals that you can plant in the spring for added color. I wouldn't plant the vinca. It is a lovely ground cover, but it will be hard to keep it confined to such a small space.
You might also want to try a couple of ferns, No flowers, but lovely lacy fronds.
Good luck
PS: I agree with Megan, make the spot a bit wider and you'll enjoy it more.
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