Verge Garden- Part 5: Planting Beds

Now that all the plants were purchased, the Verge Garden strip could finally be built.  I decided to go with the more thoughtful and considerate option B plan.  No Poison Ivy and half the work and cost.

The first step was to scrape off the top layer of sod.  This was incredibly easy and I just piled it all into my large tupperware bin thing that I use for transporting dirt in our Subaru.  (Sigh...yearning for the days of having a truck.)  Unfortunately, I did not anticipate that sod weighs about twice as much as dirt.  So when I tried lifting the mother into the back of the wagon, I think I ripped all the sinews in my inner elbows.*  Unshovel half the dirt back into the bed, dump the first sod load, reshovel and dump the second load.  Oi.

 After scraping off the top layer of sod, I spaced my brick paths evenly along the lot line. Using a trowel, I excavated to the proper level, poured a smidgen of sand down, and started laying bricks.

The further I got down the row, the tighter the space between the edge of the curb and the edge of the concrete sidewalk became.  Fortunately, I had my father's rubber mallet and masonry hammer to fit the tightest bricks into place.  Yet it still was no easy task.  Much swearing and brick chips in the eye were enjoyed.

After getting most of the way done, I realized that the proportions of the planting beds reminded me of a stray cat cemetery.  But, turning lemons into lemonade, I remembered that there are a lot of dead stray cats around our neighborhood (because of the bus route) and realized, hey, what makes better fertilizer than dead stuff?  So, collecting all the roadkill in a two block radius, I piled one into each planting bed, and covered them with 6 inches of soil.**  6 cats that finally have a final resting place.  Amen.

And now we have a beautiful, albeit, slightly morbid Verge Garden Strip, ready for all the groundcover and rock garden plants I purchased.

 

*  Yes, I know, lift with your back, not your arms.

**Just checking to see if you're reading carefully.  It's like those stupid standardized tests where they make you read the passage and then see how many relevant and irrelevant*** details you can remember.

*** Not that dead cats are irrelevant, mind you.  I find dead cats in the city to be extremely relevant, mostly because there's too many strays and I attribute very little value to their life.  So, its the one time I rooting for Septa.