Gardening

The Circle Garden

The circle garden began as a water garden, which we constructed when we moved to this property eight years ago. A large circle, surrounding a native persimmon tree, was excavated to a depth of 2 to 3 feet, with a width of about 5 feet in most places. The pond was then constructed using a heavy poly liner and rocks of various sizes. The pond was visually pleasing, but the design was flawed in that the pond was located on a site that got too much runoff and collected too many live oak leaves during the spring. Hence, the pond was a maintenance headache. Here is what it looked like when it was first completed.

I had held out hope that I could somehow salvage the pond by redesigning some of the more problematic aspects of it, but this past spring I decided that it would make the most sense to use the space as a growing bed instead, and to construct an entirely new water feature on a better site. The result of this recycling of the pond to a planting bed is what I call an ‘inverted raised bed’. This bed was created by cutting drainage holes in the pond liner, filling the bottom of the pond with river rocks and pea gravel to facilitate drainage, and backfilling the rest of the hole with Geo Growers Thunder Garden mix.

I began planting in this bed in early June of this year (see the first picture below), using plants that I had started in the greenhouse during the winter. The selection of plants includes tropical sage, yellow yarrow, mealy blue sage, mexican bush sage, native ruellia, anaheim peppers, sweet basil, jalapeno peppers, poblano and bell peppers, purple coneflowers, portulaca, kong mosaic coleus, rudbeckia, oriental mugwort and salvia greggi. The photos that follow show various aspects of this garden. The results have been fantastic. I only have to water this bed half as often as a normal in-ground bed or a raised bed, and the plants are thriving.

I continue to make updates and additions to the Plant Catalog page, and I have plans to add content to the About Us page soon.

Cheers,
Carol

© 2006 Lost Valley Gardens.