Hope Is a Garden
This area of the front garden near the stone-filled drainage ditch has mysterious origins. While it is one of the garden beds established by the previous house owners, the soil quality is much worse than anywhere else, unable to hold water and filled with small roots. I enlarged the garden bed towards the house by covering a pile of autumn leaves with a thick layer of wood chips. This mulch succeeded in killing the grass, but it hasn’t improved the soil quality to match that of the rest of the garden. Once plants become established here they do alright, but some plants don’t survive the first year without coddling and tend to grow slowly. I’ve had much better luck with self-seeded plants like butterfly weed, goldenrod, and catnip that seem to find the right niche on their own.