Future Plans: Cutting Beds

Now that we don't have a phone or a plant on this table in the living room, we decided that it always needs flowers:

These are tulips that Tiegan picked out at Tendercrop a few weeks ago. They always have flowers (many they grow themselves), and it's kind of luxurious to pick up a bouquet every other week while grocery shopping.

Still, spending the cash on flowers (which I do find totally worth it) could be alleviated it we just had a cutting bed. I had started one at the Red House, but many of the perennials in it were just starting to fill out when we moved, so I'm not sure exactly how it turned out. (It was arranged by color, by the way, which was totally awesome. I'll have to dig up some old photos for another post.) I do miss being able to run outside and bring in lots of flowers whenever I feel like it, so I think some cutting beds are in our future here.

But where? We thought about saving a row in one of the quadrants for annuals, but when we worked out those plans, we got seduced by all the fresh food potential and didn't really leave any room. The handful of flowers we do plan to have there are also edible (borage, roses, nasturtiums, lavender, chamomile). 

There aren't many places left to choose from: the back lawn (designated play area), the crappy bed along the driveway (small but sunny, it will be a bitch to clean up), the front sidewalk strip in front of the hedge (totally sunny but also bone-dry, and no way to irrigate), something creative along the property line in the front yard (which requires the removal of two scary, half-dead pine trees, and is more like to be a spot for an expanded orchard). And then there's this:

This spot is to the northwest of the screened-in porch. I took the picture with my back to the big garden and the swing set. I am standing between the fence and the raspberry bed. That gate goes to the front yard. This area is not without its problems, including a need for repair:

You may recall that whenever the wind blows here (which is often), shit falls down. This fence section fell back in December, and when it was warm Kirk was working with our neighbor to fix it. But then it got cold, and that project is on hold. 

There's also a weird little sinkhole near the far corner of the porch (cleverly concealed in the photo by the fallen fence section) that we need to fill in. The soil in this area (by the fence, anyway) is absolutely terrible: if it's possible to have sandy clay, that's what we have. We know this because we carved out a small "holding bed" for plants we removed from the perennial border but wanted to save:

As you can see, it's a weedy disaster, but I guess it wasn't so awful that things couldn't grow. Some perennials (yellow loosetrife and chrysanthemums) are coming up, and daffodils I moved last spring are doing just fine:

Note that this is also the burial site of our fish Fern.

Another issue with this spot is that, at best, it is in partial sun. The side near the fence gets sun in the morning, and the side near the house gets sun in the afternoon, but in the middle of the day, it's mostly shaded by either the house or the giant maple tree in the front yard (not an issue for early spring bulbs, but still). It might be ok, but most flowers need full sun, especially for sturdy stems. 

So what does this spot have going for it? Well, it's close to the fruits and vegetables, and to a faucet. It would make a really beautiful area to enjoy on a hot day from inside the screened-in porch — a person could have a full view of all the color, and enjoy the fragrance as well. The biggest selling point for me, though, is that this is just a dead space in the yard right now. At best, it's something to walk through to get somewhere else (like to water the trees in the front), but more often than not, no one wanders over  there at all. We would never miss the grass there, either. 

So I'm not completely sold on the site, and if there ends up being any need for raised beds or extra soil or pretty much any cash outlay, it will have to wait. Still, it's an excellent rainy-day design project to pick at until we get it right, and I do love a design project!