A Quickie Back Story

always remember - I AM NO EXPERT

A Quickie Back Story - BEFORE I learned about Lasagna Beds

I have always loved growing things but never took it seriously. I even created a little lawn grass of sod in my office but I have never had a garden. Just never had a good place for one.

When we moved into my very first house it already had "gardens". Long, straight strips of daylilies one after another in a long line outlining our back yard. We also had a tiny bit of baked dirt in the front, not soil but dirt. My wife and I planted a few things there but it all got baked . . . . . except for some lavender that flourished!!

Well, we moved and I was presented with a blank canvas. A yard with absolutely nothing on it. Oh sure the builder had landscapers put in top soil (dead dirt) and planted seed for grass and after a month I had 50% grass and 50% quack grass.

We planted some trees, an Autumn Blaze Maple, two clumps of Heritage River Birch and the first of two Don Wyman Crabapple Trees. And we had some guy from McKay Nursery design a plan for a few spots of the yard but, frankly, I was under whelmed. Everything was so . . . . formal.

This tweaked my brain wondering what was missing, why was I under whelmed. Some primal part of me was whispering, plant it and it will grow (with apologies to Field of Dreams).

Plant? Plant what?? Tomato's? Rutabaga? I'm not real big on veggies. It must mean flowers! So I opened my eyes and started looking at what others have done with flowers and I saw there were some things I REALLY liked and some things I did not like at all. The deciding factor was that I loved gardens that looked lush and almost overgrown. And the beauty of this is that if they are overgrown with flowers, there is no place for weeds to take over!! Have I found the magic solution?

So I went NUTS!!

My very first garden, a test garden if you will, was around my mail box. I dug out around the box and started planting like there was no tomorrow! I used Blue Wonder Catmint, East Friesland salivia, Autumn Joy sedium and Karl Foerster feather reed grass. All look pretty feeble at the moment as it is fall and I did not dead head when they were blooming.

I have heard that all REALLY nice gardens that you see are 3 years or older. Like wine, a garden needs to age.

I then dumped in a big bag of cocoa bean chips and waited. BINGO, everything took off and I would walk out to the little garden beaming like a proud papa. I would pick the tiny weeds even before they would taste sweet sunshine.

After a couple months of my plantes NOT dieing I started my next project.

This would be a larger project and more expensive (who new gardens cost so much!!). I wanted a triangle near the southern border of my lot. We were in the middle of a drought and since this faces south with 100% sunshine I picked all drought tolerant plants.

After shoveling and roto-tilling (which is much different then roto-rootering) the 72 sq feet and with the plants in my garage and with our first rain in 3 weeks on it's way, I started planting. Lavender, Coreopsis, Rue, Purple Palace heuchera, some other type of heuchera, daylilies, more catmint and then again, lots of cocoa chips leaves things.

I was the Jackson Pollock of gardening, random splashes of plants, no REAL design going into it. OH, I had a vague idea but it all changed when I put my first plant into the soil.

I then ringed the garden with rocks that I had found all over the new yard (not seen in this photo).

Then, it rained. And then it rained some more. This was good I thought, flowers like rain. It was perfect for a couple weeks and the garden looked fine and I was happy.

Meanwhile, the south of the US was being called the ring of fire with heat. We in southern Wisconsin were on the very edge, the dividing line between two powerful, warlike armies of air masses.

We were about to become the front line.

In August we average about 3 inches of rain, and from the time I planted my garden to two weeks later we had gotten a little more the 3 inches of rain. and THEN war broke out.

Sunday the 19th 3 inches
Monday the 20th 3 inches
Tuesday the 21st 0.7 inches
Wednesday the 22nd 0.8 inches
Thursday the 23rd 1.6 inches
Friday he 24th 0.7 inches

Six days and 9.8 inches of rain PLUS the 3 inches in the previous two weeks.

I would step on my yard and sink an inch in muck!

The words "well drained" does not enter in any conversation when speaking our our land.

The garden came through "ok" for the most part. The catmint is showing stress because it is on the uphill side and was taking the proverbial bullet of rain as it gushed down our hill. I hope it comes back and figure I'll wait until spring to see if it made it.

Here are some photos of the aftermath - the Heuchera is looking bleak and the catmint, while looking bad has some new green on it. Oddly a different variety of Heuchera (Purple Palace I believe) is doing better, (or is it the other way around). As you can tell THIS catmint looks a little more stressed then the above photo of the mailbox catmint.

The rest of the garden faired OK as you can see the Lavender, Coreopsis are doing fine.



Note to self - write down what is actually IN the garden, don't commit to memory!

The rest seem OK and the mail box garden is fine.

I SHOULD have deadheaded the catmint but that was a new concept to me. Next year! I did shear the coreopsis and it is now reblooming.

SO - with two gardens running I was thinking of spring. I had my yard layout in front of me and there was a spot just begging for a garden. Full sun between the trees.

Lasagna Beds.

Hmmmmm - what could I do NOW that would help me next year. The dirt in my yard is clay-like and not the best for growing. I asked the Garden forum for ideas and was told by no less then 14 people START A LASAGNA BED!

This was yet another new concept. So being an obsessive sort of guy I looked into it.

The short answer is, it's a raised bed with the best dirt you could ever dream of!

And that is where I will stop for now.

Next blog I dive into a Lasagna Bed!