Front Yard Garden/Flower Bed Expanded (Again😳) & Lawn Replacement

With just cardboard & topsoil/mulch, I’m expanding my front yard flower beds–AGAIN!

Easy Garden Bed Expansion

#gardening #frontyardgarden #easygardening

Instagram: @tomatoesandpoppies

Hey guys welcome back to tomatoes poppies and everything gardening I’m Heather coming to you from Zone 7 to 8ish in Central Virginia so for today’s video it is kind of a confessional video and I’m even shocked at what I did I am so not really embarrassed but kind of

Have an edge of like feeling like I’m going to get in trouble um but it it was kind of fun to do it but it happened so quick and I don’t know if I blocked out over the course of like 3 4 days but somehow I went out front and I

Built a new flower bed I don’t know how it happened I tried to explain it to my husband last night cuz he really doesn’t understand how it came in my head or how I even went out there and did that but look at these pictures I took pictures along the way

You can see that it just started growing it’s like I came up with the idea months ago probably in the fall maybe even longer than that it was in my head that I really need to make this bed bigger and bigger for all these ideas I had um and

Then once I decided to do it there was no going back I just I got out my cardboard I had been saving possibly for this project who knows and I still had bags of mulch that had sat there for months and and I’m like I’m just going to do it I’m going to

Connect um I had like a bridal Bush and then late uh last fall my mock orange was getting so root bound I dug a hole and just stuck him in the ground probably about 6 feet away from that U Bridal Bush and then I’m like I’m going

To connect them all we’re just going to have one giant race bed we’re like going to just not have any front yard I mean what’s the point of having a front yard you know need a lawn I’m driving my husband crazy I tell you so let’s get outside I want to show

You um what it looks like currently and then I’ll kind of go back and show you a few Clips I took along the way and also uh we got to do some measurements because now we have room to plant more stuff so here are the three areas I

Wanted to connect on my existing very very big flower bed the circle area that had the BRD book brush and then what was in the foreground of that first picture was um the mock orange and here I’m just showing you some pictures before I get started um I do desperately need to weed

That front bed eventually I want to bring it all the way to where the point of that Arrow was um and here are some more angles just different view points we do have a lot of clay so that’s why that mock oranges so planted high so I plant

Things High here and this is uh the beginning when I was getting started uh you can see I just do my basic method cardboard wet it sometimes I put top soil down then I put my mulch down uh keep it really moist and wet it will

Take a while for that to break down I did run this by my neighbors to let them know what I was thinking and then the next day you can see that I’m putting um some yarn out to measure the property line based on where our property pens are just strung some yarn

And then I put the edging um about 2 in in on my side and eventually I’ll remove that edging and just do a cut in um into the grass um cuz I like that look better but you know to get started the um basic flexible edging works really good so you

Can see I’ve got tons of cardboard I’ve been wetting it been expanding um this is over the course of many many days can take a while for this cardboard to break down even if I’m wetting it often so I’m not going to be able to direct sew seeds what I’m going

To do uh for the first say 6 to 9 months if I want to plant in this area I’m going to have to um just dig a hole and put a transplant in unless I want to leave an area uh completely open and take up the grass and not have cardboard

Um that’s what I need to do but there are so many weeds here so I really need to do the cardboard method to kill off all the weeds um that are in our so-called lawn which is mostly weeds I’m standing at the very front of that front

Flower bed and you can see that it’s really expansive the Viewpoint and I’m going to have so many more options for what I can plant what I do need to do is focus on deer resistant plants uh the deer walk right through this area all

The time and uh so now we need to think about so I’ve got that orange I’ve got the bridal bush in uh right in this area we just looked at I think I’m going to try to grow my Rosel this summer so I brought the dog leash out here it’s

About 6t long um my husband always hides the measuring tapes for me because supposedly I lose them but I’m using that as my measuring guide and then I’m going to Mark the perimeter of these plants about how wide they’re going to get uh with some of my hardy hibiscus um

Um sticks that um I need to prune off anyway so you’ll see me do that here in just a second so I measured the BR Bush at about 7 ft wide you can see Tonto he’s enjoying the nice warm day and uh I measured the mock orange at about 6 ft

Wide and that’s going to leave about a twt gap between the two once they’re fully mature and flushed out completely you can see I’ve got some new growth coming on the Brattle Bush and in a second you’ll see the mock orange is starting to get its leaves too so there

Are the hardy hibiscus sticks that I put in the ground and I’ve got a nice perimeter circle around each plant and that’s going to be my guide to know what I can plant and where um it’s going to take a few years obviously for these guys to fully mature U the bridal

Bush is probably about three or four years at this point and it was just a little twig bare root when I planted it there’s that little twot walkway there and uh I think it’s going to look really nice I’m not going to have as much planting space as I thought once

These two shrubs are fully flushed out when I was pulling out that hardy hibiscus um the sticks I see this and it’s so ominous that is a marod seed pod and they’re all around uh these branches I also pulled out um a hearty hibiscus from the ground so I’m going to stick

That in a pot The Roots look perfectly healthy and I should get a whole new plant from that uh but the marod situation scares me um that was from one seed I planted like 3 years ago I’ll never plant marod again unless I have like 50

Acres um and here we go so I’m just showing you kind of how I ended this particular afternoon remember it took many many many many days over the course of a week or two um to get to this point and and I think I don’t even know

What I’m trying to show at this point probably that I need more cardboard and I need more mulch um it’s the next morning it’s raining and the Cherry uh the Okami Cherry there you can see is starting to get its beautiful pink Buds and I decided since it was raining and I

Ran on a cardboard we’re going to go to Sam’s and we’re going to look and see what’s available right now uh they usually get in a lot of garden stuff this time of year and and I want to ask you guys what are some ideas what do you

Think I should plant in this area um it’s going to have a good amount of sun and remember I am going to put the Roselle kind of right there to the left of that uh purple bench and so let’s see so what I found basically was uh here’s a view from the

Road as I was leaving you can kind of see all the work I’ve done I’ve got a lot more to go though um so I found some doas I think I’m going to put some more dasas in this area the new area and then my daughter

Wants to do an elephant ear I’m still thinking about that I’m not decided so let me know what do you think what should I plan and I’ll talk to you soon bye