The last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get some spots in the garden in order before it got too cold. One is shown here:

It’s a spot that in theory should be a good way to have dealt with the slope of the garden as opposed to the level patio. The problem that developed was that the small foot or so of garden that aligns with the lower grill area, just has become a place for dirt, leaves and other random outdoor junk to collect and wash onto the patio. Plants haven’t seemed to want to grow very well there, so it just became an a dirty eyesore. We had originally planted purple tuurtleheads and bee balm in the area, then added some other plants as things died back.

So finally this year, I decided this area needed a change. I had the stones moved forward to the edge of the brick and some plastic added to keep the dirt from washing in. There’ll be a bit of a slope, but it can’t be worse than the ugliness of what I am dealing with now. Neither of those original plants did great in this locations, so what’s left of them I’m moving them to other spots.

Moving the plants–a clump of turtlehead roots

and some very scraggly bee balm that needs more sunlight.

The spurge that does do well here, I’ll split in the spring.  It’s about 5 years old so probably ready to split.  I’ve also been been finding such interesting Coral Bells (Heuchera) lately and they seem to like it here.  I’ll try to add some more of them and some interesting hosts and astilbe to round it out.  I’m hoping this impoves the look and keeps the patio a little cleaner.

Here’s what it looks like now, honestly not much better, but getting too cold to really do much.  The rest of the plants to be added and moved will need to be done in the spring.  At least I’m ready!