I'm in shock and disbelief. For about 2 decades or more (ever since I can remember) the flower bed on the west side of my house has been an empty eyesore. Mom could never get it leveled out, she said. Nothing would ever grow in there. That side of the house always looked naked and forgotten.

Well last night after I got home from the gym, the fiance and I decided to go do some investigating into that flower bed and find out why nothing would grow there, and if it could be amended.

First we discovered it was full of trash. Plywood, lattice, broken boards, wire, metal brackets, plastic insulators for the ground wire, plastic bags, chunks of brick, mortar, concrete pylons. Then under that was lots of poison ivy, and a voracious vine under the ground which had to be dug out. After we got everything out and hoed it, turned out to be really nice soil, well drained, and that side of the house gets about 6 hours of sun. Idk if the ground wire for the house being there affects what grows there, but I see lots of lavender and chickory growing along roads near ground wires....

Anyway, we added 6 large bags of topsoil, and I built a small retaining wall inside the actual flower bed because it is sloped there and I think some of the soil was eroding downhill. I used some of the bricks we found for that. Then we planted 2 gooseberry bushes and 3 english lavender plants. The windows for both bedrooms are on that side of the house so I thought the lavender smell would come inside when window are up. I planted one under each window, and one in the middle. Then we sprinkled some perrenial seeds and put small cages around the berry bushes.

Mom was mad about gooseberry bushes being next to the house, do y'all think I should have planted them there? I got a good deal on them and nowhere else to put them. It's not like that bed was being used for anything other than a trash hole anyway.

So in around 2 hours, with my fiance's help, I was able to conquer something that has troubled me since childhood. I hope it turns out ok, and if so I may plant more stuff there. Oh yeah still need to mulch and work on the border. But it looks much less sad now. Just clean and neat with things growing in it.