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 orange 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?

Behold the natural cedar fence that replaced the UGLY chain-link fence covered with English ivy.  It's hard to believe it was only 4 years ago that I thought this was a fine place for ivy.  Ha!

Sure looks different!  Also, neighbors can see the garden through the slats, a bit.  And even though I may need to repaint/retreat the wood five-10 years down the road, it'll be far less work than the constant hacking back of that English ivy, which was taking over the sidewalk on one side and the garden on the other, requiring my near-constant attention.  Sure, it's evergreen but damn, it's English ivy.

Here's what it looked like for over 20 years.

My county’s wonderful public garden just celebrated 40 years, so what do they do?  They invite everyone for some family fun in the garden AND a Beach Boys cover band, so what’s not to like?  Nothing much in these photos of gorgeous structures – a gazebo, a teahouse and a pool.  The mid-summer portrait.

One of the highlights of my whirlwind 5 days in Los Angeles this past week was hanging out with designer/TV host Shirley Bovshow, and getting to see her own garden.  Not only is it well suited to the Southern California climate, but edibles are incorporated throughout in ways that are totally beautiful.  I can’t describe the plants she’s growing – they’re mostly foreign to me in Zone 7 – so I’ll let the photos do the talking.  There’s also a video tour of her back yard online, and any suggestions you can give about garden videos, please weigh in with a comment on YouTube.  

The amazing "before" photos are right here – don’t miss ‘em!  They show that her back yard used to be plain and flat, one big open space with some crappy lawn and not  much else.  And here’s Shirley’s photo collection with even more before-and-after combos.

This last one is the narrow side yard, which used to be nothing but ivy and the view of a chain-link fence.  Now it’s an outdoor kitchen/potting shed/veg garden, with plenty of seating along the walls of the raised beds.

Check out this sea of salvia at Chicago’s Lurie Garden!  Gorgeous, and awfully close to sustainable (its irrigation system is rarely used).  Design by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, plants by Piet Oudolf.

More from the gardens of  Chicago coming soon to this blog – and about 50 others, thanks to the second annual Gardenblogger Spring Fling.  For now, gotta run.  We’re off to see the garden of Rick Bayless, one of this city’s most famous chefs.