A year later, and the so-called “hell-strip” has been just that, although I’ve had good comments this summer, and a comparison of last year’s photos and today’s photos show a significant improvement. Read the Parkway post from a year previously…
An entire year of weeds, weeds and more weeds, especially in the grass border around the outside: crabgrass, foxtail, plantain, violets, all the usual suspects. Finally, I put down black plastic over much of the grass and mulched it in late August, after pulling weeds for hours three different times throughout the summer. I’ll let those weeds die out and try again in 2024.
Some of the rest has been a success:
- The Purple asters have done amazingly well and are beautiful.
- The original tickseed at the southwest corner bloomed all summer.
- The sedum is still there, but hasn’t spread much.
- The great blue lobelia did well and is putting on a vivid blue show.
- The yarrow did well, looking good most of the summer.
- The clasping coneflower did well, but flopped into the sidewalk. I have more robust stakes for next year.
- The honey locust tree is looking OK, but suffered a bit from webworms.
Replacements
Other plants, especially those planted from seed, were replaced with sale plants in early August, then the space between was mulched with cardboard and tree shred mulch:
- More tickseed to go with the tickseed by the honeylocust.
- A spotted beebalm (Mondara punctata) beside the lobelia.
- More red rudbekia around the honeylocust – Sunseekers red.
- An additional aster for the northeast corner.
- Seeds planted includes:
- More clasping coneflower (to be sure it comes up again next year)
- Black eyed susan
- Butterfly weed – Asclepia tuberosa
- Hopefully those will germinate after winter!
I did plant more grass in areas that weren’t terrible, and we’ll see if that germinates, assuming we get some rain.
Planting Plan, Updated
