My Black-eyed Susan Border May 18, 2014

It is always thrilling when a plan comes together.  After we cleared the woods at the front of the house I created a border using thin cedar trees as the edging.  It runs along the side of the Rose Garden.  I did not seed the area with Black-Eyed Susans,but I knew they would show up if I did nothing.  All they needed was a little water for encouragement.  This border is meant to be completely natural.  Yes, I will seed it through the years with wildflowers, but mostly I let the pretty Black-Eyes be the stars of the show. Once these re-seed next year we will have an even thicker stand of them.  My expectation is that they will crowd out a lot of the weeds, and it will be a naturally healthy stand of relatively weed-free grasses and wildflowers, no maintenance required.  Over time I will expand the border, making it a little wider each year until - who knows - the whole cleared area in front of the house (about a half acre) will be a wildflower meadow. These results are the effort-free planning of only a few months.  Think of how lovely this area might be in a few years time!