Mulching + Updated Backyard Layout with Plants

The garden redo is crawling along. The weather wasn't cooperating, and our schedules have been crazy. Mike is on gate duty and I'm building the raised beds (which is easy, but monotonous and slow). And all the rain makes the lawn grow like crazy, so I feel like Mike is always mowing it.

The other piece of the puzzle is the dirt delivery for when the beds are finished (almost there!). And in order to have dirt delivered, the giant mulch pile has to be gone... so I've been mulching. 4 cubic yards to spread around. And after all of Morgan's digging and destruction, it's been much needed. Plus a nice layer of mulch just looks SO good every spring.

(4 cubic yards is A LOT of mulch. Think of it this way... those bags one gets from Home Depot? Each of those is 1-2 cubic feet of mulch depending on the size of the bag. A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet. So Basically I have 108 bags of mulch to move. And for .25 acres, that's a lot of mulch, but I have a lot of garden beds!)

This year I have a helper. Matt has my gardening gene. Not only did he start his own garden, but he's a slave driver when it comes to mulching. He LOVES to help me mulch. For his birthday he got his own gardening tools and wheel barrow, and he thinks it's the greatest thing ever. He's somehow managed to make it look so fun, the neighborhood kids gave me a half hour of free labor trying to figure out why Matt liked it so much, which is hilarious.

Here's Matt's garden too.

He  insisted on lining it with stones, which I think is so adorable. He dug up the grass and added soil from a hole Morgan dug. He picked out the pansies first and later asked for more flowers from other nursery runs, digging his own little flower holes, putting them in and filling the dirt back in. PRECIOUS. He also waters it all the time by himself. The fence is there to keep Morgan from trampling it, because she has no respect for gardening.


On another note, I've updated the backyard layout with the new plants! It's overwhelming, but also I like keeping track of what should be where. Things in red are the changes.

Things to note:

Left side
The asparagus is possibly dead. We had one tiny stalk come up this spring, and that's it. Morgan Mayhem loves asparagus so much, last Summer she not only ate all the fronds as they sprouted, but when those were gone she dug up and ATE the roots too. I almost totally wrote the plant off, but then one sad little stalk came up, it's hidden behind the fence now and I'm hoping more little fern fronds will come up next.

On the tiny patio strip we have the new gold flame honeysuckle, an annual black eyed susan vine and filled in a couple gaps with dahlias.

My new sunset bi-color butterfly bush was planted between the other honeysuckle vine and the trimmed back forsythia bush.

On the other side of the forsythia bush, once I trimmed it back there's now a gap between the raspberries and forsythia. This used to be where we had mint before it died off (seriously I thought mint could survive anything, but apparently not!). Do I put leftover oregano here? Try again on the mint? Let the raspberries move in?

Around the dogwood tree there is now more creeping phlox... Originally I wanted a ring but the little sprouts of it died (they survived in the front yard but not back here). Then our local garden center had two HUGE phlox on sale for like $3 each, so I nabbed them. I also want to add another aster under this tree and under the tree in the front for more fall color.

Next to the dogwood tree is Matt's new garden.



Down by the new garden we have our thornless zephyr climbing rose. It is sitting in a pot until the garden is ready, for fear of trampling it. So far it's fine. And it will have a lovely arbor to climb up by the end of the summer (hopefully sooner).

Down the line I planted two lilac bushes and a red bud sapling... but they died. So they aren't included in the diagram anymore. Sad! I need to contact the nursery to see if they will send a replacement, but I'm pretty sure it's from all the wet weather. Root rot has killed things back here before.

Right side
Next to the garage behind the fothergilla shrub, we have the new David Austen Lady of Shalot climbing rose. I can't wait for it to bloom (and it will have a trellis).

Past the two slates is the current strawberry patch. The plan however is to move these to the non-rotating back bed in the garden with the herbs. I'm not sure what I'll plant here next, but I love the possibilities!

Along the right side all along the fence, almost everything is the same as last year and I just filled it in with dahlias in the (marked) gaps. And where Morgan damaged a few things, I've filled that in with additional dahlia seedlings sowed for this purpose. Also the second discount phlox in the front where one of my blanket flowers didn't come back (It was a victim of Morgan's digging last fall)

I added a lupine to the back where the delphinium was (also didn't come back... this might have been Morgan, but it also wasn't doing very well, so I'm not sure). Lupines don't like to be transplanted so I put it in a biodegradable cup planter... hopefully it works! Also a globe amaranth where I had a dahlia last year... I'm very hopeful this will take off...)

In the bed next to the grill/deck,  I added a couple of new phlox to the front (it's a great front row filler), the extra lavender in front of the crepe myrtle, and dahlias in the gap.

The right side back is the same as last year. Nothing died (thank goodness) and I haven't needed to add anything new here.

Front yard
Along the front I added a couple purple balloon flowers and a yellow/apricot blanket flower in front of the shrubs that have a little room. They are really small... hopefully they survive! Last year I did the same with some blanket flowers and butterfly bushes in the bac and didn't think they would make it... but then by the end of the summer they were great.

The mailbox garden is the same except for a globe amaranth on the right side (when facing the house). The grass died here so I just naturally widened the bed, which led to a gap that just "had" to be filled!

I also added a couple of snap dragons this year. Usually I don't plant many annuals in the ground (just pots), but I really wanted some extra pops of color.

So that's the updated yard. And it's mulched, so now my focus is 100% back on the raised bed garden project... time for a dirt delivery and an update on the raised bed construction!