After many challenges, I found a quick an inexpensive solution to at least one hurdle in my life- my flowerbeds. It’s almost a new year, and I can’t wait to change the digits on my calendar. 2017 was a hard year for me in many different ways. I lost two good friends (one to cancer, one to a stroke). I lost my father right before Christmas, an amazing scientist and landscape/wildlife artist. My partner, Kate, and I also moved to a new home. It was difficult leaving behind eight years of hard work… established flower beds, wildflower fields, and gardens. The young couple who bought our house are wildlife and gardening enthusiasts themselves. That softened the blow somewhat, knowing that my hard work will provide them with a solid jumping-off point for bigger and better things. Plus, they will continue to enjoy the wildlife like my partner and I did: the deer, the fox, the birds, butterflies, and beavers.

Moving Plants

When we were selling the house, we wrote into the contract that I would be able to transplant certain plants and flowers. (It may be worth noting, if you ever move, that this is not too uncommon in the real estate world. My agent just added it as a rider to the contract.) Most of these plants have special meaning to me and Kate. One rose belonged to my grandmother, another to her mother. Two roses followed me through two moves previously, and I dug various bearded iris that had passed down through various relatives. The garden phlox originated with Kate’s family; the day lilies with my mother. The buyers asked us to mark the plants we intended to take, perhaps fearing we would loot the entire yard (a reasonable fear), but, truly, the plants we marked will hardly be missed in the grand scheme, many just being divided rather than removed entirely.

While we should have had ample time to get everything moved, including the plants, the reality was that I was flailing, trying to take care of both parents, hold down a full-time job, and move at the same time. The plants didn’t get dug up until the last weekend before we closed on a Monday, the week after dad died, two weeks before Christmas. I ended up with a dozen or more transplants and nowhere to put them because I hadn’t had time to get any flowerbeds ready at the new house.

Getting Creative

So, I had to get creative. While the new house has several old flowerbeds, they are weedy, covered in Bermuda grass, Johnson grass, and/or vinca major, plants that will easily choke other plants. I will need to get rid of these before I reclaim any of the existing beds. What I really needed were new flowerbeds, created quickly and inexpensively for the primary purpose of overwintering my transplants. They didn’t need to be very big because I don’t have that many transplants, but I did need to make them before the really cold weather hit this week, freezing the ground and any soil I might want to work with.

Last spring I had tried an experiment: I put down cardboard covered by mulch to choke out a section of Bermuda grass. I had my doubts as to the efficacy of this approach because I swear that sometime in the distant future, after the sun has expanded into a red giant and engulfed the earth in flames, Bermuda grass will still be lurking, alive and well, somewhere beneath the surface of the planet, waiting for the opportunity to sprout and spread again. (If I have used this expression before, I apologize. It’s just the best way I’ve found to convey just how insidious and indestructible the stuff is.) But after eight months under the cardboard and mulch, the ground was grass and weed free, and perfect for planting.

Lifting up the cardboard and mulch applied in spring to show the weed-free soil beneath, 7-months later.

Getting Resourceful

Having just moved, one resource we have in abundance is cardboard boxes. Rather than throw them away or recycle them, we are keeping them. I will use them to try to choke out the three-headed hydra of Bermuda/Johnson grass/vinca in the existing beds. Also, I decided to use them as a base in my newly-created raised beds.

I already had several cement blocks, and I purchased a few more to form a raised, rectangular flowerbed. I layered the bottom with cardboard and filled it with a mix of quality garden soil and peat.  My hope is to keep out the three-headed hydra long enough to get my transplants moved to their permanent digs this coming spring or next fall. It took around 40-minutes to build the entire bed; moving the cement blocks into place and cutting up the boxes and removing the packing tape took the most time. The cement blocks cost under $2 apiece, the boxes were free, and it took slightly less than two large bags of garden soil, some peat, and one bag of cedar mulch to finish the flowerbed.

Cement block bed lined with cardboard in hopes of choking grass underneath.

Word of Caution

One word of caution about this style of flowerbeds. There are concerns that cinder blocks (perhaps cement blocks, too) might leach chemicals into the soil. I would hesitate to use this for a vegetable garden. There might be concerns about the box glue and ink used for printing on the cardboard boxes, as well (the internet has mixed opinions). So, you’ll have to decide for yourself if that concerns you. I’m transplanting perennials. So, I’m less concerned about such things than I would be if I were planting food.

Continuing Construction

I also purchased eight, pressure-treated landscape timbers, used 6-inch spikes to hammer them together, and built a shallow raised bed around a “wishing well” the previous owner had built in the front yard. Again, I lined it with cardboard and filled it with a mix of quality garden soil and peat. This will be a permanent bed, and we’ll see if the cardboard keeps the Bermuda grass out for more than a season. I used multiple layers of cardboard in the hope it would take longer to decompose. If I plant anything with deep roots, I’ll need to cut through the cardboard to accommodate the roots. The plan is to plant my irises and variety of annuals that won’t require deep soil. The cost and labor on this bed was reasonable given the size of the resulting bed: Eight, 8-foot landscape timbers ( $5 apiece), eight 6-inch nails, six bags of garden soil, peat, and mulch. I pre-drilled the nail holes to save time and effort.

Pre-soil landscape timber bed. 

I should note that I didn’t plant all my transplants in these beds. Two roses went directly into the soil along my chain link fence. Some others will hopefully survive the winter in pots. I planted a massive four o’clock tuber next to my back patio. Hopefully it will bring us divinely-scented evenings next summer and fall.

Tonight, I’m sitting here in my nice, warm house while the temperature drops well below freezing outside. I know that my plants and flowerbeds are as safe as I could make them in the time and budget I had.