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Help! narrow bed 18' between hse and driveway
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Posted by
tricia257 5 (
My Page) on
Thu, Jul 21, 11 at 1:42
| I have this horrible little bed which is about 20' long and 18" wide right between the house and driveway. It faces south so were talking hot and sunny in summer and since this is where we have to pile snow in winter it also gets a bit of salt. I have some caradonna salvia and white daylilies there now but I still need to come up with more ideas. Anything I plant has to stay very upright. We have some russian sage there for a while but it extended into the driveway too much. Any ideas? Thanks |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Help! narrow bed 18' between hse and driveway
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| Sounds like a good spot for a Sedum collection. There are so many varieties with different heights, foliage and flower colour. Some of my favourites include: 'Angelina'
Autumn Charm
'Hab Gray'
'Jose Aubergine'
'Matrona'
'Xenox' Two newer varieties that I've just planted are 'Chocolate Drop' and 'Raspberry Truffle'. |
RE: Help! narrow bed 18' between hse and driveway
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Don't limit your ideas just because the bed is small. The beds immediately adjacent to our driveway are quite narrow - in the 18" range on two of the three sides. They get covered in snow removed from the driveway in winter without any problems. Why are you concerned with having things upright? I deliberately plant things that softly mound over the concrete curb at the edge of the bed/driveway to make a nice transition and soften the look. The bed in this picture is very narrow and dry because it is under the overhang of the porch roof. The euonymus gives evergreen winter interest while the rodgersia adds summer flowers and the interesting large leaves. When the rodgersia dies back for the winter the empty space that is left is available storage space for snow removed from the top of the driveway.
 You can see the bed in the previous picture across the front porch in this picture taken from the road early last August - the main driveway bed is in a lull before late summer bloom starts...
 In the above picture, the bed on the right side of the driveway looks fairly wide - but it's only 18" wide, with a path behind it! In this picture taken from the roof in June you can see that the bed is narrow and I visually 'widen' it by adding large pots on the driveway. The driveway is the only sunny place in the garden (note the large trees in the backyard that you can see in the second picture...) so I use pots on the driveway to grow fruits and vegetables.
 The backbone of the border on the right side of the driveway is Pink Beauty potentilla shrubs. They are late to leaf out in spring but then bloom all summer. They make a nice mound that blends well with other plants. Here is one with a lily in early August:
and with hardy hibiscuses in August as well:
 So I don't think you need to feel too constrained just because a bed is narrow. |
RE: Help! narrow bed 18' between hse and driveway
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| woodyoak - Great easy care planting for that narrow bed at the top of your driveway. What a perfect match using Euonymous & Rodgersia there! Euonymous is such a slow grower for me, but I love it's evergreen presence. |
RE: Help! narrow bed 18' between hse and driveway
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| i think putting pots of flowers in a bed of evergreen would be pretty you could move the pots in for the winter and then have a different flower every year just have the bed planted with some type of pachysandra or ivy or mondo grass or even junipers and just put some big pots right in the bed, this bed would stay green all winter. if you go with something that dies back in the winter would this be too stark looking? if you have hot beating sun you probably have trouble keeping it watered if you don't have a soaker hose in it. so i would think of some grasses that stay neat and tight. |
RE: Help! narrow bed 18' between hse and driveway
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| Wow! loved looking at the photos. Great ideas. I like the idea of the euonymous. I did try to grow juniper when I first moved in (and didn't know anything about gardening) and they couldn't tolerate the winter wet. I do somewhat try to enlarge the space visually as I have some large daylilies planted at the ends where the window wells are. Anything too wide would get driven over by teenagers. I still have damage on the other side of the driveway to a barberry that was hit with a bicycle. :) Question: I did have sedums growing there and they got crown rot. I dug them out and dug out all the dirt I could and am relaceing it. Everything I read on the net says that I have to wait years before I try another sedum as the fungus will still be in the soil. Any thoughts? I have killed more plants in this bed than other other part of my yard. Thanks again folks for all the great help. |
RE: Help! narrow bed 18' between hse and driveway
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| If the area is wet enough to cause rot, stick to plants that can take those conditions. Are the moist conditions a temporary thing each year relating to snow melt or is the area always wet? The hardy hibiscuses like reasonable moisture so it would be worth giving them a try. The potentilla shrubs would be worth a try too. They do not get very big and it's best to remove 1/3 of the stems each year to keep them renewed (and avoid the woody look that comes with age...) They bloom on new wood so any damaged stems can be removed in spring without affecting the summer display much. The snowblower sometimes breaks a branch or two - we just cut those ones off in spring. |
RE: Help! narrow bed 18' between hse and driveway
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| This bed is the bane of my garden! It is super hot and dry all summer and then piled with snow in the winter. When i dug up the dead sedums i noticed that about 12 inches down the soil is hard like a rock. I didnt realize how bad the drainage was. I think i caused the rot by overwterimg. Im going to try to improve the soil a bit. I really like the idea of some small shrub since it would look ok yrround. Thanks again for the photos and ideas. |
RE: Help! narrow bed 18' between hse and driveway
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| probably when they built the driveway all the junk soil that was around went to fill in the edge after pouring the concrete, after reading i think you need to dig out the clay? soil and put some drainage material in down deep, some gravel and a good soil mix with peat moss and other compost, the key is the drainage you got to get the base right just digging out the old dirt and replacing the top soil won't re leave the problem of not draining. we ran a excavating company and the problem with all planting beds start with the drainage, you should see what the contractors back fill with. |
RE: Help! narrow bed 18' between hse and driveway
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| This sounds like a perfect recipe to ruin your basement, assuming you have one. I had a house in OH with the same setup and ended up having to have steel I-beams placed in the basement to hold the walls up. You should never pile snow around your house. (Not always practical if it snowed while you were away from home, but if you shovel before driving on the surface, salt isn't usually necessary.) Good drainage along the foundation of a house is a bad thing, especially in a climate with freezing/thawing winters. You want water to go away, not down. This area should be sloped so water runs away from your house. The best thing you could do is pave this area as part of your driveway. |
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