The Fenceside Perennial Bed, Part 1

I went through my photos and picked out early and prime-growth pictures of the fenceside perennial bed.   I'm glad I separate my processed pictures into years/month/subject.  I have one folder for just "Yard/Garden", LOL!  But there are too many to post all at once, so there are 2 posts.

About 30 years ago, I decided to establish a flowerbed along the fence, about 50' long and 6-8' deep.  I had a rototiller, but it wasn't a good one.  It would go in reverse (even though there was a lever for that) and would only go 6" deep at best.  I hired a guy with a BIG DRIVABLE ONE and he got down 12".  I dug in amendments (compost, peat moss) myself afterwards.

I planted annual flowers and a few shrubs for a few years, but that got massively tiring after a while.  So I decided to switch to perennials.  I knew little about them, but studied garden catalogs and made some choices.  Some worked well, some not so well ("perennial" can be a bit vague sometimes - from 2 years to nearly forever).  A few years later, I studied more concerning "expected lifetime" and chose those 10+ years.  I also added a small 5' plastic pond.

Some are 20+ years and still growing well.  So here are the early pictures of the bed.  There may be some repeats of one flower or another, but I will try to delete those.

The 1st year bare-bones.

Flags to locate very small transplants...

Mature potted perennials (Stokes Aster, a wonderful long-lived plant, still flowering).

Coreopsis?

Columbine.  Spring-bloomer.  They didn't do well in the bed, but they keep showing up in the shady parts of the backyard.

An assortment.  The purple ones in the back are Purple Loosestrife.  I ordered Coreopsis 'Golden Gain' and the nursery messed up.  Loosestrife is invasive.  The nursery replaced my order, but it took 5 years to finally kill off the Loosestrife.

I forget the name of both these, but they didn't last many years.  Pretty, though.

Stella D' Oro daylilies.  Bloom several times each year.

Lupine.  Also short-lived...

'Autum Joy' Sedum.  Deep red Fall color.  Dependable.  Clippings root in water for propagation.

A next-year look at the bed.  

And another...

This one isn't exactly along the fence, but is across from the garden path.  Stella D' Oro on both sides, Purple Coneflowers along the bottom, and I think I put annuals in the center.  

You can see one garden path.    It actually goes behind and on the other side.  I dug out the paths and back-filled with 3" of gravel.  I thought that would defeat the weeds, but it didn't.  But they sure are easy to pull out in gravel!

Tomorrow, Part 2...