This site is an archive of ChiotsRun.com. For the latest information about Susy and her adventrures, visit the Cultivate Simple site.
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Front Foundation Gardens

July 12th, 2009

I don’t often post all-around garden photos that show large areas of our gardens. Right now is when I love the way our front foundation gardens look. They’re full of color and bursting at the seams with vegetables, flowers and herbs. I thought I’d share some overall photos of them.
Front_flowerbed_with_Flag
These garden beds are pretty most of the warm months, they’re full of things that bloom throughout the season, bulbs for spring, flowers for summer and fall and kale for winter interest. July, however is my favorite season in the front foundation garden.
Front_Flowerbed
These gardens change every year. I plant new things and move old ones, or get rid of plants that I don’t like. This year I gave my mom a bright pink tall phlox and next year I think I’ll be getting rid of the daylillies.
Lush_Flowerbed
They’re still a work in progress, this year I’m adding the rock edging along the front, and I also added a lot of edible plants (can you spot them?). I have bluberries, cabbage, broccoli, sweet potatoes, dill, thyme, chives, basil and hyssop growing in these beds.
Front_Foundation_Garden
I’d really like to keep all bloom colors in the purple and white category with perhaps the occasional pink or green thrown in. I’m slowing working my way towards that goal.

What’s your favorite time for your ornamental gardens?

Chiot’s Run Labor Camp

April 13th, 2009

Well, that’s what Mr Chiot’s wanted me to name this post after spending the weekend gather rocks for some new garden beds and to line the driveway.
load-of-rocks
Mr Chiots spent some time each day this weekend gathering rocks for some hardscaping in our garden. We have tons of rocks everywhere, especially in the back woods. They threw all the rocks out there when the built the house, so there are piles of lovely big rocks that are beautifully aged with moss. The best part is that they’re FREE (just a little manual labor needed).
brian-gathering-rocks
These rocks sure come in handy when we want to define garden beds or terrace our sloping lot (see What to do With an Abundance of Rocks). Every year we add more and more of the to the garden.
pile-of-rocks
I love the look of the natural native stone in the garden, you just can’t beat the look. They blend right in and look like they’ve always been there. Especially when it’s got alyssum or thyme cascading over it, or is being overtaken with some sedum.
rock-wall
I much prefer it to the square retaining wall stones many people use, although I realize some people don’t have easy access to free rocks like we do.

Are you a rock wall lover? What do you use for hardscaping?

What to do with an abundance of rocks

June 26th, 2008

Everywhere we dig in our gardens reveal rocks by the dozens.

I used to cast them aside and there are still many piles along the edges of the woods to attest to this. About 4 years ago, we decided to start using the rocks for walls to contain our gardens.

We have a severely sloped front hillside out by the road and we have used mountains of rocks to terrace it. It’s such hard work, we only finished a third of it the first year.

This year we started working on the right side of the front hillside, this is what it looked like in April when we started.

This is it’s current state, we still have a lot of work to do, but it looks better than it did last summer!

We also have used rock walls to edge our driveway.

Now finding a rock while digging is like finding a treasure, and we are constantly using the piles along the edges of the woods that were made during our first 2 summers here. We now have rock walls all around the property and rocks edge almost every flower bed we have. Plants always look so lovely cascading over a wall of rocks.

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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