Yard Work Hard Work

At my request, Ken expanded the garden in front of the garage. I had used our old yellow hose to lay out the curve, then spray painted the grass inside the line to guide his shovel.

I removed the stones in front of the Pachysandra, and tossed them all in the center of the garden where there are no plantings, just for the time being.

Once that was done, I applied Preen liberally to the bare soil and covered it with weed cloth.

Ken has been saving up our nice, dry yard waste (leaves and pine needles, not grass) and mowing over it with his power mower to reduce it to a fine mulch. He brought it over by the wheel-barrow full and we spread it over the weed cloth.

With that section complete, I moved on to the section on the right, digging a deeper trench, cutting out roots, and smoothing the earth. Another application of Preen and it was ready for mulch. We're doing a side by side comparison to see if the weed cloth is appreciably better than Preen and mulch alone for preventing weed and grass growth in the border.

The last two photos show the two beds fully covered with mulch.


Next step: use the stones to shore up the higher portion of the bed, and once the stones are gone, mulch the center section. I'm not going to edge the bed with stones this time - this will be much easier to maintain from year to year.

We like the progress so far!