Parking Strip Redux

Back in 2017, I hatched up a plan to remodel our plain front parking strip. I ordered about $100 of  plants and did a blog post. Sadly, by the time the plants came the bed hadn't been prepped and wasn't ready for them. Jeff hastily dug out some spots and planted a few of the plants and we watered them the rest of the summer, but we never saw them the following year.

We finally decided to take on this yard space again. I don't have a recent before photo, but it looked something like this. The path was more overgrown with grass, which was quite a chore to clear.

I approached Jeff a couple of weeks ago and asked if he was willing to take on this project again. He agreed, particularly when we discovered Aaron was back in town and would be available to help.

I was thinking of something along these lines. (Thanks to our lovely Laurelhurst neighbor a couple blocks over for the inspiration photo.)

I was all excited and spent a couple of days making a flower inspiration board with all the beautiful plants I wanted to put there. It was a riot of oranges, yellows and purples.

I ordered the bulbs and some seeds. I was thinking I would start some of the plants myself to save some money.

Then Jeff and Aaron set to work digging out the location and adding mulch. Jeff likes his berms and swales.

However, after spending all day outside we realized the front planting bed gets almost no direct sun this time of year. The huge maple tree across the street shades a lot of our front yard for most of the day. So, at that moment, our plant plan screeched to a halt. That's probably why the flowers we planted earlier didn't survive.

So I hastily started over with plant research. We needed to find plants that would tolerate mostly shade. Since the dirt was ready, I couldn't take my time with this project. My obsessive personality was up to it because by the next morning, I had my plan.

I was not disappointed. I have always loved ferns.

Jeff blogged about the plant selections at his garden blog if anyone wants a more detailed list.

I'm excited we finally got another small project checked off the list.

We're still debating about the side with the Oregon Grape. Jeff likes it. I think it's too big. At the moment we've compromised by Jeff cutting it way back. My hope is that eventually we do at least some plantings around it to resemble this side, but I'm willing to wait until more pressing projects are finished.