Flower bed “Flowering vineyard” (two months resume II)

Posted by czechgardener on Mar 14 2019

Published on September 9, 2017 on www.czechgardener.com

Hallo everyone,

although I have some ideas of the design of the whole 2 acre land, it’s still in my head only. But I already started on several partial projects – in the most needed areas. Finally some creative work, although general maintenance is creative too.

The internal organization of the whole garden also depends on creating potential rain gardens (areas for soaking extra rain water in early spring or when flooded). And also of potential small nursery – for growing and propagation plants for the garden itself and maybe for selling some plants too. So some bigger landscaping with the digger might be needed.

Also the whole design has limitations – it has to fit to the general American taste, so the property can be sold – at the time for returning back to the Czech republic.

So the first project was the “Flowering vineyard” flower bed, so actually it is about 15 x 1.2 meters long flower bed along the south side of the house. Full sun, sheltered position, only one end is shaded by native eastern redbush (Cercis canadensis). Ideal for growing grapes and sun loving perennials (originally mostly herbs)….you can see the whole process. Of course soil work was the issue, because of the heavy clayish soil. Thanks to the rototiller too, it made lots of hard work here! And I have to mention the neighbor Ivin, who helped with digging the holes for the poles! (if you’re tired, it’s really good to use the Huckleberry Finn/Tom Sawyer’s technique of painting the fence).

Before the work started / Old edging can be still used

Neighbor Ivin was great help / Installing edging for the flower bed

Posts for grapes and roses are installed

I bought some plants for this area (nursery Cox’s, Lowes, Meijer), mostly just one plant of the variety or species (and mostly on sale too). So I really needed to draw the plan for this, but I have also used some of the plants that were growing in the yard, some plants were divided too. Generally I can say that the plants are 1 meter (3 feet) tall at the maximum, mostly lower because of the grapes that will grow on the wires stretched among the wooden poles. And you can find certain pattern in yellowish and blueish tones of used varieties of Salvia and Coreopsis (also the verticals of sage should contrast with shasta daizy type of flowers). Two climbing roses – Rosa ‘Don Juan’, 2 + 2 grapes of Vitis ‘Fredonia’ and ‘Concord’ were planted here.

Some of the Coreopsis (tickseed) are the newer varieties (mostly unfortunately not enough hardy in the Czech republic), so this is also testing flower bed too.

Several hundreds small bulbs will be planted in this area too, hopefully this autumn! Bulbs are already ordered at https://www.vanengelen.com , but haven’t arrived yet (Crocus, Chionodoxa, Puskhinia, Tulipa clusiana, Ipheion).

This seems to be the best place where to order medium-bigger amounts of bulbs for good wholesale prices.

So with the bulbs this flower bed should be flowering since early spring till autumn and wild some native plants were used too – Aquilegia canadensis, Penstemon calycosus, Asclepias exaltata and Eupatorium coelestinum. Echinacea purpurea and Aster dumosus are used in cultural varieties, still should be pollinator friendly with other plants.

Three spots will be planted with single color annual Zinnias (and probably also lower variety of Verbena bonariensis too), because they belong to our favorite plants too.