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May 29, 2008 · 3 Comments

Installing a Front-Yard Garden

How to

Last fall, I marked off the area for a front-yard garden, something I’ve been wanting to do for a couple of years. Our front yard faces east and south and while we have planted some big trees, the corner in question gets baked by sun, and consequently, required watering all the time, and still the grass looked brown. Minnesota doesn’t really have the right climate for growing turf grass, even under better conditions.

I used the smother method to kill the grass and was only semi-pleased with the results. As the photo shows, not all the grass was as dead as it should have been. Next time, I’ll used the method described at the Minnesota site, lesslawn.com, which calls for a minimum of 10 sheets of newspaper and then a heavy load of mulch on top. To finish killing the grass, I did a judicious spritzing with Round-up, which kills pretty much any plant it touches, but disperses rapidly. I’s a good choice for this kind of job. During the week or so I had to wait for the Round-up to wear off, I took care of a couple of other pre-planting jobs.

First, call Gopher State One-Call (or use their web site, if you can figure it out) to have the utility lines marked. As I suspected, wires were under my bed. This meant hand-digging very carefully in those areas. Second job: Go buy your plants!! That’s the fun part. I had an idea of what I wanted because I’d had Kristin from Knecht’s visit last fall. I swamped out a couple of the choices Kristin suggested for similar plants that were more to my liking. (As great as they are, I refuse to plant even one more purple coneflower in my yard.)

Once I had all the plants selected, I started arranging them–in their pots–on the garden site. My daughters said it looked like aliens were staging an invasion of our yard. In placing them, I thought about the ultimate size of each plant, the various types of foliage, and the bloom time of each plant.

Placing plants is tricky, but as Don Engebretson says, “It’s not rocket science!” You want variety in foliage, plants with different textures and shapes. You also want to have something in bloom all season long. Finally, you want to plant in swaths or drifts. This has long been my downfall, since I tend to pick a plant and just put it in the ground. For more on how to create interesting perennial gardens, check out this article on Don’s web site or look at the pictures of Terry Yockey’s Red Wing garden on her web site.

Once I was satisfied with the foliage, the bloom times, and the drifts, I let it sit for a couple of days. Remember, it’s easy to move pots, not so easy plants that are in the ground. I made a few adjustments, then Monday afternoon started planting.

Related posts:

  1. Garden Advice from a Pro I will be doing most of the planting and installation...
  2. The Smother Method The smother method of starting a new garden is simple...
  3. Bulbs in a Minor Key There’s more to bulbs than tulips, daffodils and crocus. Many...
« A Bouquet of New Books
Installing a Front Yard Garden: The Finished Product »

Trackbacks

  1. My Northern Garden » Blog Archive » Sedum is an Autumn Joy says:
    September 20, 2010 at 9:59 am

    […] ones, such as ‘Black Jack’ and ‘Purple Emperor’. When I created a new front-yard garden a couple of years ago, I debated whether to plant a purple sedum and ended up choosing […]

  2. Sedum is an Autumn Joy says:
    October 4, 2018 at 2:52 pm

    […] ones, such as ‘Black Jack’ and ‘Purple Emperor’. When I created a new front-yard garden a couple of years ago, I debated whether to plant a purple sedum and ended up choosing […]

  3. Right Plant, Right Place - My Northern Garden says:
    November 12, 2020 at 1:47 pm

    […] out with the grass, and in with a planting bed with prairie plants: grasses, blazing star, Russian sage, perennial salvia, sedum. Now in its third season, I love […]

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