Recently I told you about the hellstrip / sidewalk garden transformation I was working on. It’s been a few weeks now, and I thought I would share a few photos of the space as it looks today. For starters, here are some of the plants I used:
Clockwise from upper left: Ageratum, East Friesland Sage, Zinnia, all from Costa Farms, and Rosemary from Bonnie Plants. The entire strip is lined with rosemary as the foundation plant, along with lavender plants that I rescued from a clearance rack.
African Daisies
Zinnias, and Ageratum (Portulaca in the foreground)
This Portulaca was also a rescue from the clearance bin of a local garden center.
After several heavy rains I can safely report that the bed holds up quite well, with almost no runoff of the mulch whatsoever. The flowering plants are all continuously in bloom (the portulaca photo above was taken this morning), and with the exception of the lavender, everything has been 100% self-sustained. That means I haven’t so much as watered these plants and they are thriving, which was exactly what I intended.
Lavender can be a fickle princess, so it is slow growing at the moment. That said, it is still green and flowering! One look at the initial before and after shot is all I needed to know I did the right thing, but every day I am more and more impressed with how much of an impact improving this small space has made.
It might not look like a big job from these photos, but my back and shoulders can report otherwise. I look forward to updating you as the season progresses, especially as these rosemary plants begin to fill out more.
