What do you do when you have large new borders to fill and would rather not A, spend much money or B, wait forever for them to look good? Steal like crazy from other parts of the garden – if you’re lucky to have an old garden that has plenty of divisions and too-big castaways to spare.
So as I wrote about on GardenRant, landscape architect Billy Goodnick drew me this cool plan for my ex-lawn – greatly enlarging my existing borders and reducing the lawn-like area to not much more than a path.  So, where to start? First I used stakes and then oran
ge marking paint to create the new border – that’s easy enough. But now it’s mid-March and time to fill ‘em up.
The first photo is of the right-hand border (seen from the house and also on Billy’s sketch). You see the orange lines and the junipers I planted there yesterday. They spent the winter potted-up on my front porch, and seem to tolerate being moved every spring to the back yard to make room for Fun with Annuals on my front porch.
Also on the right are two large, severely cut-back grasses of some sort (varieties of Miscanthus, now forgotten), which were too big for their spots somewhere else, and I envision them draping 
gracefully over this large pot that will be trying to fulfill Billy’s vision of a focal point. Then behind all that are 3 year-old Itea ‘Little Henry’ which don’t look like much yet and I’ve decided I need 3 more of same to fill the area and mimic the kind of massing Billy suggests. What’ll go along the front of the border is anybody’s guess at this point.
And any ideas for what to put in the big pot?
Then in the lower photo here you see the lefthand border where I’ve moved the full-grown spirea to another focal point, and the enlarged border now jumps over the dry streambed (something I’d never have thought to do). To fill up the new space I planted some large carexes (including some that are blizzard-battered but presumaby capable of recovering), lots of smaller ‘Ice Dance’ carexes, and a flowing mass of lamb’s ears along the new edge of the border. The stepping stones WILL be moved and relaid to follow the center of the new lawn-like path through the garden.
So, any more ideas for filling up new borders for the Impatient Gardener?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
You learn well, grasshopper (or is that “wax on, wax off”?). Nice to see this moving along! Must be nice to see dirt instead of snow. One things still needs a bit of lower lumbar attention. Your stepping stone path is about as sexy as my 7th grade English teacher, Miss Potter, a bird of a woman perched atop spindly legs and possessing the sashaying ability of a shuffling inmate in leg-irons. In the words of Max Bialistock, “Flaunt it baby, FLAUNT IT!” Put a little wiggle in that money maker.
Other than that, bash on!
Annuals from seed is the most inexpensive way to fill an area for the first year or two. If you can afford to toss in a few tropical bulbs, such as Cannas and Alocasia/Colocasia, and you’re in good shape. Tropical bulbs are perfect for large containers.
The perennials can go in year after year as you can afford them.
Susan, it looks like you didn’t take up the old grass but I can’t tell. Did you just plant into it or do you have other plans? The reason I’m asking is because I am doing the exact same thing – enlarging the borders and trying to get rid of the grass. But our St. Augustine grass is a bear. And yes, I’m filling in with some plants I bought and some from other parts of the garden.
Jean, I DID take out all the grass – 2 years ago. What you see there now is the lawn substitute I used – Sedum acre and Dutch white clover (and I’ll be removing the clover – too tall). Leaving actual turfgrass in a border I wouldn’t recommend – too much weeding involved. The Sedum is easy to yank out wherever I don’t want it and stick where it’s really needed. Gradually the larger plants in the new border areas will grow and crowd/shade out the Sedum, I suppose, but in the meantime it’s covering the ground even now, at its worst.
Of course! I knew you had removed your lawn but had forgotten since it still looks like grass from the photos. Good job. My method for removing parts of my lawn is to slowly put newspaper or cardboard down, cover with dirt/compost/manure and pinestraw, and wait (somewhat impatiently).
I was wondering how Cannas would look in your container.