Meet a Talented Deziner

This photo is taken from Michelle's "Raised Flower Beds" collection.

When planning a color scheme for a garden, one should always consider the hard elements that make up part of the landscape. Collectively know as hardscape, these include paving stones, boulders, fences, fountains, gravel paths, retaining walls, walkways, pergolas, archways, arbors, garden sculptures, swimming pools and large decorative urns. All bring color and surface texture to a garden, usually in neutral tones. Do not overlook them because, when used creatively, they enhance colors found in nature.

Here is a photo, by the talented "garden sculptor" Michelle aka "Deviant Deziner” and posted to her blog site Garden Porn. The light, bright shade of grey used for the stones of the retaining wall enhances the strong pink flowers as well as the lime Hosta, making both of them appear more vibrant. The right shade of red flowers would have looked almost as striking against this cleverly chosen stone color.

By the way, the title of Michelle’s blog camouflages an extraordinary talent. When you visit her site you will be amazed at the scope of her work, "sculpting" gardens, that she captures so beautifully in striking photographs. I hope that, in the future, she will allow me to use more of these wondrous pictures to illustrate some of the themes that I enjoy writing about.

How Do We Grow Perennials in Mucky or Hard Packed Clay?

We don’t!  We build a raised flower bed of good, well-drained soil on top of the clay. In a previous blog titled “The Worms Ate My lasagna”, dated January 31, 2009, I suggested lasagna composting to build an arable garden over clay soil. That solution requires the gardener to wait a full season to allow the compostable materials to transform the soil. If waiting that long is not an option, here is a more immediate solution.

Over the clay surface, sprinkle garden lime, gypsum and blood meal, and moisten well. Add layers of any, or all, of the following items: coffee grinds, crushed egg shells, sawdust, cotton dust from the clothes dryer lint trap, perlite, vermiculite, cotton seed meal, newspaper, paper bags, rock phosphate, shredded paper, decaying leaves and spent mulches. Moisten again. Cover with a three inch layer of store-bought pure marine compost or homemade compost and moisten again. Add a two foot layer of the best quality garden earth available in your area. On top of that add a one inch layer each of peat moss and top soil. The flower bed is now ready to be planted.

As planting holes are dug and refilled, the compost, earth, peat moss and top soil will blend together. If  planting roses, blend Epsom salts into the back fill of the hole dug for the roses. Sprinkle more on the ground under the planted rose bushes. If planting rhododendrons, sprinkle additional peat moss around the trunks of the shrubs, making certain that the peat moss does not touch the trunks. Don’t forget to water the newly planted perennials.

In the first two years, the root systems of the new plants will not be strong enough to prevent erosion of this raised bed. Here are several options to prevent erosion:-

1] Surround the exterior perimeter of the bed with large rocks to contain the soil.

2] Place treated wood beams around the raised bed to wall in the earth.

3] Plant a border of hostas or low growing ornamental grasses to frame the bed. Planting daylilies at some of the corners and edges of the bed is another anti-erosion technique.

During autumn and winter, a combination of heavy rain and the weight of snow will erode or compress the earth of the new flower bed exposing the newly rooted plants to cold. Preventive protection is a good idea so in late summer or early fall, add a one inch layer of marine compost, followed by two inch layers each of garden earth and peat moss. These protective layers will contribute to insulating the new plants and need not be repeated in following seasons unless there are additional signs of erosion. In autumn, these protective layers should be in place prior to planting spring flowering bulbs, such as tulips and daffodils.