I've been having fun in the garden recently. Or maybe its been more work than fun. For a while now, I have been thinking about putting a hard-landscape edge to the border that runs along my back fence. I finally had time to do something about it the beginning of May, and the weather was wonderful, not too hot and not too humid. (Of course, this being Houston, the lack of humidity didn't last long - not nearly as long as the job of installing the edge.)
On the Friday of Mother's Day weekend, I went shopping for blocks. I finally decided on something that Lowe's calls Lodgestone, in red to match my brick. This is smaller than the windsor blocks that you can see in a picture below; there were nine of them on the property when I bought the house, in a semicircle at the western corner of the back fence. I decided not to use this block, primarily because it is so heavy to move, and also because it looks kind of industrial to me. I kind of liked another shape better then the lodgestone in the store, but thought that because this has a narrow lip on the bottom of the back, the edge would hold up better if I should decide to make the bed taller in the future. I like the lasagna gardening method of layering materials on the ground rather than digging - I guess because I am ultimately a lazy gardener.
Laying block is not a job for a lazy gardener. But I really like the way it looks so far, and am happy with my choice of block. The edge is designed to be 27" from the back fence most of the time, coming out to 37" a few places where needed; specifically in front of the white mistflower/blue clerodendron toward the east end of the border, and in front of the American Beautyberry bush toward the west end, which although it is not real large now, has the potential to become 4-6 feet wide.
I do have one problem, where I could use some advice. I don't quite know the best way to handle the west corner, where the back meets the side.
Eventually I want to lay block along the side, but one step at a time. I plan to put a camellia in the corner - where you can maybe see the remains of a hibiscus that did not survive the Great Freeze of 2009-2010.
The pictures show a sample layout for the corner, that keeps the flow of in and out consistent with the rest of the back border, but I wonder if it would look better to keep the border narrower for longer, and then have the edge come out in the corner. Any suggestions are welcome!
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