We have two gardens, one on each side of the house: the higher maintenance vegetable garden is mostly cared for by my husband whereas I take care of the lower maintenance perennial/herb garden. We all take part in harvesting from both gardens.
I started tearing out the grassy east side of our house in the spring of 2003. We have shallow clay soils and though fertile, it’s very compact and does not drain well. Below the soils are caliche and limestone rocks. I decided to experiment with a minimally raised bed so that I wouldn’t have to water too much. I planted antique roses in those large holes and over the years, I added many more plants in that bed. The root system helped aerate the compact clay soil over time. In addition to the L-shaped bed, I had a rectangular, slighly more raised bed in the center.
Spring 2003
Summer 2003
I ditched the rectangular bed in the spring of 2004 and started working toward our master plan of multiple beds tied together by a network of decomposed granite path. We finally got a rototiller and that made the job a hundred times easier! Then, we had kids and not much happened. Just occasional weed control and yearly fertilizing and prunings.
Spring 2004
Spring 2005
Creating the beds and laying out the paths was the most labor intensive part. After baby-ing the plants until they were established, less than a year, the perennial garden has been for the most part low maintenance. Every spring, the roses and flowering plants reward us with a showy display of fragrant blooms.
