Just living is not enough … one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. – Hans Christian Anderson
When my family and I moved into our house last spring, we moved into a brick house with literally nothing outside but very sparse grass and a neglected deck. Although the emptiness in the backyard was overwhelming, it was also an opportunity, a blank slate. After renting out of the country for many years, the prospect of turning our new backyard into whatever we could dream up excited me.
Since the furniture and furnishings we’d brought with us to Prague hadn’t arrived (and wouldn’t for another 7 weeks — eek!), I spent the first weekend in the house refinishing the deck and the second one installing a flower garden / landscaping. But, from many years of digging at our former US house, I wanted to try to do it the simple way.
I’ve long thought about writing this post, and waited to put it together until I saw the garden had survived the first winter. It did. So here I am in the second spring with the quick and easy, do-it-yourself way to add the garden of your dreams to your own yard …
Flower Garden in a Weekend: the Quick and Easy Installation
the gardens at my former US house, created with the same method
Ingredients:
Shovel
Garden gloves
Roll(s) of landscape fabric
Mulch
Steps:
1. Lay out a garden hose in the shape of the flower bed you want, on top of the grass or dirt.
2. Dig a trench along the length of the hose, and remove the grass. The trench only needs to serve as a barrier from grass growing back into the garden area.
3. Lay landscape fabric over the entire surface area of the grass in your future garden. Pin it at the edges in the trench you’ve dug.
4. Spread mulch in a thick layer over the landscape fabric. (I use Cypress mulch because the odor is much more palatable for me…)
5. Set containers of the plants and shrubs you plan to add and arrange them as you’d like them to be.
6. Cut an appropriate size X in the fabric where you want to install a plant. Dig and plant according to directions. Discard the grassy clumps or turn them over inside the hole.
7. Add sunshine and water, grab a drink, sit back, and watch it grow. You’re done!
Hopefully, in another year or two, this new flower garden will look like the ones above. 🙂
What to Plant?
Here are some other posts I’ve written:
20 Favorite Flowers to Plant This Spring
Why Garden? 5 Reasons to Get Dirty This Spring
I’d love to hear about your stories … have you put in your own flower beds? What is your best way?
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