Cottage Garden aspirations

Photo essay incoming.

So last year, I wanted to do something about this:

Once upon a time, this space was filled with hostas and day lilies. It wasn’t inspiring landscaping, but it worked. Over the years, it became a catch-all for a wide range of things. You can see the indent from the free-standing basketball hoop. But this space is where things got tossed—roofing debris, decking, and so on.

Then, of course, weeds and saplings began to take over. Although the hostas are fighting the good fight.

Clearing all that out was as far as I got last year. Mainly because I wasn’t sure what to do with the space.

This year, I had the inspiration of starting a pollinator/cottage garden. Because the weeds and saplings were so aggressive, I opted for the cardboard mulch method:

The hostas seem to be making a comeback. That’s bee balm between the two patches of hostas. We have a nice mix of pollinator-friendly flowers: daisies, asters, poppies, delphinium, echinacea, and lavender. They seemed to have survived the downpours and the heat dome fairly well.

The trick with the cardboard mulch method (or so I’ve read) is that you need to continue to add compost during the growing season. This is what I did yesterday, and honestly, I think the plants are happier already.

And now, since it’s been a week, it isn’t raining, it isn’t too hot outside, I’m heading back into the garden to touch some grass (and other growing things).