Instant Garden

I like being on a corner lot. It gives me more opportunity for boulevard gardening. (Boulevard has many meanings. Here in the Twin Cities, we use the word to denote the strip of soil between the sidewalk and the curb. These are wider here than in some other parts of the country, in part to provide space to hold the snow when the streets are plowed.)

It's not a place for delicate plants. People will step into and through boulevard beds, especially when it's not clear that plants are growing there. Fences are not an option. Some boulevard gardeners use raised beds to get around this problem. I prefer to keep my boulevard garden at sidewalk level.

Certain plants have enough dried foliage over the winter to help identify their beds. I have a new boulevard bed right on the corner, where kids would walk across to get to their school bus. Because of winter die back, it looks barren right now. To help protect those plants, I took dried stalks from the backyard and stuck them in to create an "instant garden."

That's aster on the left, German statice in the middle front, and Rudbeckia on the right.

So far, I've had a few broken stalks, but no footsteps in the corner bed.