My front yard slopes down and a small area was considerably lower than the rest - it appeared that previous owners/tenants had probably made this area into a garden, but it had since been neglected. Regardless, the shape of it begged to be smoothed out and new plants brought in!

The dip down was subtle, but definitely man-made. I bought several plants and laid them out in the area. As discussed in my first garden build, I am not a gardener (I feel like I’m letting my Hufflepuffs down! ;) ), and this front area got a lot of sun, so I picked plants that did well with full sun and were also drought-resistant. Several were duplicates of the ones that were doing well in the upper garden, like the blue fescue and the New Zealand Flax. I also made the mistake in getting the blue “rocket-like” plants (pictured above next to the red flax) - I had initially planted these same plants in the upper garden and they died…so why did I think this time it would be any different? (It wasn’t…they died within a few weeks…)

After deciding on a layout, next I needed to make the garden bed more defined. Using a shovel (still hadn’t discovered the beautiful pick yet…), I removed the top layer of grass (mostly weeds) and made a defining “retaining wall” edge. The garden still had a gentle slope down, but it was ready for the plants. The rocks in the front I left alone for the time being…I had plans to make a dry river bed in the front eventually.

The “retaining wall” is only about 6” tall. I didn’t have many ideas on how to finish it. I knew the front would be finished with a river bed eventually, and the bed would be covered with mulch, but all my browsing on Pinterest wasn’t giving me many starting points. Most retaining walls were much larger. I thought about wood beams, or rocks, but nothing was really jumping out. I didn’t want to do a “normal” garden edging, but was running out of ideas.

The black mulch really made the plants pop. The photo above was taken a few months after the initial planting - the blue rocket plants have died, the flax has grown, and the lavender took off. I also added in some succulents. Kolme (the three-legged cat) was a big help…

I finally settled on a garden edging that was originally a cedar color. Nothing in my front yard/house was that color, so I decided to paint each section white. I used a dry-brushing technique after the first 2 coats, letting the original cedar come through in streaks, as if it was real wood (almost like aspen or ghost gum trees). The white pops against the black mulch and hides the “hill”. The finished river bed also gives a nice edge and contains this garden. Rocks that I dug up to put in the edging scatter over the bed, creating a rock garden of sorts!