I am transforming a weed strip by the road into a flower bed. Bearded irises surprised me as plants that can stand cold winters, dry summers, salt spashes and yet reward you with blooms.
Here are my unnamed beauties in their first season of blooms. I like to see passerbys smiling when they go past our house.
Most of them have various shades of purple.
Some are bicolored.
Some are shades of lavender/blue.
Of cause I mixed up the notes, but you get the idea :)
I do hope to add more as time goes on. And now I am picking up ideas in this forum for companion plants. Just thought I'd share my joy with your. I love them as they are, but if anybody could help with identification, that'd be great. I have labels from a coop and am adding them in the bed so people could read the names of plants as they stop by.
This message was edited May 22, 2007 12:20 PM
Lovely flowers! How nice of you to share them with passersby! I know I enjoy seeing other people's gardens as I drive/walk by. Always a pleasure to see others who care about beautifying the neighborhood.
This garden does more than offer it's flowers. It keeps dust down and invites so many insects to hang around. And deep in my heart I hope people might start planting more perennials instead of grass and cut down on pesticide use, but that's ....
Our county doesn't allow anything higher than 6 inches on that strip between the street and the sidewalk. But I don't think they are very strict about it, as long as you don't plant a tree. I have been thinking about putting iris along there myself. Maybe the SDBs would be best or the miniatures.
We have a limit of 2' but it's never enforced. I talked to the city about it. They did warn me that if any work is to be done in that area, then the city is not liable for the loss of the plants. So far they redone the shoulder without too much damage. People were actually very nice not to walk over the plants. And we got advanced notice, so I moved some plants that were closer to the road.
My initial plan was to start with the list of plants that could stand salt. I live on the school street so we get lots of salt and the snow is dumped on that very garden bed in the winter. But that first year I did not have any plants, so I started with free donations like violets for half-shade and daylilies. When I got an iris plant, I thought I'd try, and it bloomed :)
I think my neighbors would appreciate the iris and the city only mows when one of the neighbors calls and complains, so I doubt if this would be a problem. Of course, I would have to weed it, but iris are really good about keeping the weeds down. Perhaps I could plant some ground cover in between the irises. We don't get much salt on our street. It just doesn't have that much traffic.
Yes, irises are much better than some other plants at standing against weeds. I also mulch between irises, but not too close. That helps with controlling the weeds A LOT. Another approach I was suggested was to use creeping sedums for a ground cover, as they don't mind being shaded a bit. I am going to try it if I get the plants.
They're beautiful!
The NW corner of my yard grew nothing but weeds as it faces a street on 2 sides and gets brutal sun most of the day. My DH decided since we were going to have to completely rebuild the soil there we might as well make it into a flowerbed and he dug it up. Over the years I've started replacing the annuals with perennials and it's gets better with each passing season. (I've had teenagers stopped at the stop sign roll down their window and tell me how pretty it is!)
Some of my perennials are butterfly weed http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/604/index.html , society garlic http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/487/index.html , bulbine http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/453/index.html , gazanias http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/748/index.html , Stella d'Oros http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/2653/index.html , dianthus http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/889/index.html and blue bedder salvia http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/2868/index.html . I chose these because they could take the heat, drought and crummy soil, but also their vegetation is low growing while their flowers make an open, see-through view or stay low to the ground.
About 6 weeks ago I planted/'sprinkled' some glad bulbs in amongst the perennials and added an african daisy http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/429/index.html to see how well it'll do there, before adding more.
It's taken years of watching how plants grow in that area, finding new plants that might work, 'living' with a design idea in my head for awhile, etc., but the satisfaction of seeing it changed from junk to a jewel... well, you know. ; - >
Best of luck in your endeavor. You're off to a gorgeous start!
Yes, it take time to figure out companions that could help each other stand head and neglect. I lined up the strip from the road side with Stella d'Oros for that very reason - heat. The folliage provides some shade for the next line of plants.
dstartz,
I am with you on nothing beats the joy of seeing beauty where an eye sore used to be.
