The Seeds of Summer

As a thrifty and nifty gardener, I've been starting specially selected seeds in house. Lucky me as I had a package of peat pots that I ran under warm water to expand, and then viola...I was ready to get things sprouting. A few seeds were directly sewn into the soil outside a couple of months ago, as I was dreaming and anticipating the make-over. Also, I made a few cuttings from a plant from the front of my yard, and put together a make-shift greenhouse for them, after doing a bit of research online.

It is of utmost importance to keep newly seeded soil damp, until your seeds sprout.

Foundations

The foundation for our Coastal Cottage Garden is now set in place! This is a great accomplishment and is exciting as we anticipate new plants springing up and a whole new look from many rooms in our home. Lounge chairs and umbrella are summertime optional! I moved our firebowl center, to our canteleiver bench. I'm giving us a huge pat on the back!

Laying the groundwork

Well, it took several days but I finally have the central yard bed layed out. It took two trips to the local composting facility where I purchased four bags of small shredded wood chips. They are not fancy, but at a buck a large trash can sized bag...it's a steal. This may be temporary. We might choose to replace it with stepping stones and moss/rosemary in the future but at least it's looking very nice right now.

It was grueling work to dig up the remaining grass/sod. It must have taken 5 or 6 days. I did get some help from my husband and son, and that was a huge help. Nevertheless, it was back breaking work. I did indeed need to take a few hours, days here and there to recooperate. At last, i did the final raking and poured out the chips. I raked that around, evening it out, as best as i could.

I think in time, the color and texture will relax. I still need shoes on to walk on it really, but chances are that it will decompose naturally and be a great weed and grass preventer while giving us the natural gsetting between the beds.
Next up...the foundation is complete!

Cottage Garden Design Elements

Here's a short list of ideas I've gathered from my research so far:
Style: informal or traditional materials
Dense plantings reduce areas where weeds form!
Flowers, herbs and veggies are planted together
Cutting flowers, and hedging
Rectangular plots (formal)
Practical paths featuring local brick or stone
No lawns (informal), instead use tufts of grasses and/or ground cover
Natural looking materials
Focal points, such as arbors, traditional or antique
fencing,  and gates
Even an unexpected addition such as this clay pot purposefully turned on it's side and filled with Lobelia add to the garden's serendipity.

Soil Matters

Our soil on our small residential lot is Clay and Rock filled. We've also got quite a bit of Queen Palm roots that have crept into this lawn area over the years, so that just add's to the difficulty of the project.

I've written  about our  new amendments, below. We've got them tilled in at least 6-8" in, probably not ideal, but I can manage to dig in the bed now. Plus the mulch will keep moisture in and slow weed growth until the beds have matured. I've been real careful not to pat down any of the bed-including not stepping all over it! This should really help the irrigation get down deep in the bed, plus add air and circulation.

Shovel Ready

7 days into the first stage in our overall Coastal Cottage Garden project, as shown from above.

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  We've got the beds laid out with local round stones, dug up from our land. 
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  I spent over an hour at the local garden waste recycling/composting plant where I was able to purchase 3 large garbage bags of soil for the project. Since we are local residents, each bag cost $1.00-this is obviously a new favorite place of mine!
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  I had to shovel the soil into my own bags, but you can't beat the price or the quality and diversity of soil amendments they offer.
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  I brought home 2 bags of Humic and 1 bag of Perennial Mulch.

Well, with the rocks in place according to the plan, and soil amendments in hand, it was time to get busy!

I had given the lawn area several days to dry out to ease the excavation. My wonderful husband showed me a fantastic tool to help dig up the lawn...it's a type of pick axe with a scoop on the end. It is best used like a swinging pendulum. Many hours and sweat from the summer heat later, the first bed had been cleared of grass and existing plant material. The bed was then tilled up (husband's strength needed!) with the pick end of the axe. I added several wheelbarrow's full of Humic and tilled that in as well. I worked to rid the bed of any remaining weeds, roots, rocks (ugh!), boulders (double ugh!) , and gigantic root filled dirt clods (triple ugh!) . I broke down by hand, or hula hoe, any small dirt clogs, working also to even out the bed. I then spread  a 2-3 inch topper of Perennial mulch over the bed as the sun went down for the day. Tough Work!

The Plan-Part One

We have several areas in need of improvement, but this grass area (pictured) is first on the long list.

We were able to meet with long time landscaper (and relative) Gary,10 days ago. I had spent about two week previous to our meeting, measuring and laying out our plans on paper before our visit. I also took a dozen or more photos of just about every nook and cranny of our yard. The plans were mostly accurate and included various plant names in the legend; plus a compass rose.

Thanks to our meeting and talking with Gary, we established an overall plan to achieve our desired Cottage Garden. For this backyard lawn area, he suggested, "just rip it up and out". He drew a new smaller sketch of the area which includes three, new garden beds trimmed in stone and a central meandering path pressed from DG (decomposed granite) or small wood chips. We have the choice to enhance this path with pieces of flagstone and add some creeping thyme in the future.

We also discussed all the other areas of improvement for the new Cottage Garden, plants that do well in our area and that are within the theme, problem areas, and a Cottage garden path in the front of our home that just needed a nudge to make it more so.