THE STRIP II

If necessity is really the mother of invention then she had a hand in this.  

I had extra daylilies - lots of them - and nowhere to plant them.

But a gardener can always find somewhere...

It occurred to me that there was nothing distinguishing about where our driveway enters the street.

High shrubs on either side but plain old flat lawn in the middle.  Adding the daylilies is really all about the foliage; while not quite an urn on a pedestal the height & weight of the daylilies' foliage will give it a somewhat grander feeling whether or not it gets enough sun to bloom under those elms.  It will also help to define the borders which is inherently more formal than two properties that simply blend into one another.

Since it is 100% on my northern neighbour's property I made a proposal which she thought about for a couple of days then happily agreed to. So far we have removed less than a quarter of the grass that will eventually go. 

This is a case where bigger will be better and adding some depth to the dayliliy row will increase that sense of formality as the border lengthens. The red line denotes a natural break where the pavement changes colour. Stopping there feels right, like the two lines may subtly reinforce one another.

Even when they have shrunk down in late summer I can see the potential next year of this no-maintenance garden bed.

Since daylilies bloom later in the season I felt obliged to add something to the mix that will give back earlier in the season.  This week I added 25 daffodils randomly mixed between these two gorgeous varieties:

Centannees Split Cup and Tiritomba Split Cup.

The soil was pretty serious clay. 

I have no fear for the daylilies, who seem able to thrive anywhere, but I am concerned for the bulbs. 

Only time will tell so look for a follow up post next April.

Check out the story of the first time I took over the strip of grass between my neighbour and I.

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Sharing with Foliage Follow Up.