I love to garden. My home inNorth Everett is the nearly perfect place to garden and I live there. Gardening is good exercise – sometimes a lot of exercise. The rewards are great and I am surrounded by beauty.
When I moved to my home here, a curb strip of grass, about 10 ft. by 120 ft., was both uninteresting and required too much maintenance to keep the grass lush and green. I decided to plant three or four trees there, courtesy of the city of Everett. The day before the tree planting, the city called me and said the planting was no longer possible. Under ground fiber-optic cables prevented planting trees.
So then I got the wise idea of planting ivy because I had access to a lot of it. Neighbors, however, warned me, ”Oh, don’t plant ivy.!” I listened and now I’m glad I didn’t because what I have now is far more interesting.
Sitting on the ground, I removed the grass, little by little. While I dug away at the grass, I began looking for ground covers, with a variety of colors and textures. Most were locally on sale and kind neighbors gave me thrift, ajuga, and blue fescue. While planting those, I divided the curb strip into sections of kinnickkinnick, wild strawberry, regular strawberries, creeping jenny, violas, lambs’ ears, salal, and various colored sedums.
To add further interest, the plants are divided by cut-to-fit boards, bricks, tiles and some zig-zag patterns. I included walkways for people to cross the strips to the street and also I kept about a foot free of plants next to the curb for parked cars.
Large planters of Hiamalayan honeysuckle that grow 4 feet tall provide vertical interest iIn three of the sections. Around the pots are mixed bunches of alyssum, cerinthe, foxglove, mint, discos (pinks) and miscellaneous other perennials.
I like the way the new sectioned areas, planted with with the same plants, frame all the plants in my yard. It’s refreshing and unusual, and has attracted a lot of attention. People walking by stop and tell me how much they really love the border I’ve created. I love to give people something beautiful as they pass by.
