Project Exhaustion

If it weren’t for the weather I would be quite excited about the new border I’m making. I’m finally going to have a large perennial border that will suit both large perennials and grasses. There will be two passageways through it so there will also be nice spots for smaller and lower plants. There will be mostly perennials, but a few woody plants so it’s not quite a modern perennial border à la Piet Oudolf, but a mixed border with some prairie touches. Absolutely no cottage garden though.

“Project Exhaustion”, or perhaps it’s called “Project Fatigue” is however, what I’ve been feeling towards my massive new flower bed during the past two days. I have the energy and quite a bit of determination to finish it before the winter arrives, but the rain we had between Saturday and Sunday and last night has made it almost impossible to work on.

My lawn already looks horrible, but that was to be expected, and it’s going to heal itself. The problem is, that right now the ground is impossibly soft and slippery and I can’t cart any more soil to it and some of the remaining boulders are very hard to move. As you can see some are quite large and heavy so we are talking slipping at the slightest move and making nose plants into the mud almost immediately.

The border is slightly curved on one end and a bit L-shaped on the other end. It’s roughly 27 meters  long and 4 meters wide. It has a slight slope (less than a meter) to the south and it gets a lot of light. The curved part gets a little less light and that is where I’m going to plant a magnolia and move some Rhododendrons. The Rhododendrons are all small yakushimanum types and this is where I’m going to have slightly more acidic soil.  The magnolia is not very hardy, it was a bit of a risk purchase, so it’s possible that it won’t be there for that long..

In the first picture, all the big boulders are deeply in the ground (and quite a few of them were annoyingly placed in terms of grass mowing). This is 5 hours (including digging up two tree stumps)  of JCB work later. It shows almost the whole scope of the border. The L-part is to the right, the flat stones in the middle will become stairs. Hopefully soon..

This is the L-part: the boulder in the back was dug up by an excavator. There was one working by, so I had a chance to get it to my garden as well. Before this, all the digging had been done by my own two hands. Needless to say, I have not been to the gym for a few weeks 🙂

The other passageway, which will get stairs with a much gentler slope. Obviously, these were the type of boulders that required an excavator.

To show some prettiness, these will be some of the new inhabitants in my border:

One of the single dahlias that will get a new home next year, probably a “Bishop’s Child” seedling.

The Persicaria is going to move from my sunset border  into the new one.

Otherwise, I’m going to get back to this project – please wish for some sun!