This has been a year of garden make overs for me.  I spent so much time last year dealing with my squirrel problem and tending my vegetable garden that I did not have a lot of time to deal with my flower garden beds.  And I can really tell when looking at them. They definitely show signs of neglect.

My front garden bed was the first garden bed that I dug and tilled three years ago.  It looked great the first two years but every thing grew very well in this bed and the plants were very crowded.  And the weeds.  Well, let’s just say the bed needed a heavy weeding hand this year.This was the bed this year before I started weeding it.  The edge had all but disappeared from the encroaching grass and needed to be re-dug.  The daffodils and tulips had finished and the weeds were abundant.Most of the mulch had broken down too and the whole bed generally needed a lot of TLC.This was the view from the other side.  Promising for sure but still lots of work to do.  I was working on my combination perennial/vegetable garden in the back at the same time I tackled this bed, so some of the plants in this bed that were just too close together needed to be dug up and transplanted where they had a bit more room to grow.This is the view after a good old fashioned weeding.  I dug a new trench around the bed and added the much needed mulch.

This is another view.  After I got this done, I decided that the large Japanese silver grass on the left hand side needed to be moved.  It looked good but was crowding plants around it and I knew it would get bigger.  This picture was taken in early June and the bush was already 3 feet wide and 4 feet tall.  Since I knew that I wanted Silver grass on my back fence line, my husband and I dug the bush up and divided it. 

I got four plants this size and three larger ones that are in my back garden on the fence line.   They suffered a bit from being divided so late in the season but are still rooted and sending out new growth.  The four potted ones will go on the back fence line when we move the play house to its new location.

In place of the Silver grass, I planted a butterfly bush.  It is a much smaller plant and fits the spot better.  It also mirrors the butterfly bush on the other side of the bed. 

This photo was taken in mid July when the plants have filled out a bit more.  Amazing that the edging is already starting to move into the bed area.  Gardening is a never ending project, it seems!

These are the Silver Grass divisions in my back garden make over.  They seem to have handled the transplanting well.  I’m hoping they will fill out and hide the chain link fence behind them.  If not this year, then next for sure!

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