RE: Hell Strips
- Subject: RE: Hell Strips
- From: M* D*
- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 11:34:23 -0700
Don,
This has been a perpetual dilemma for me because my neighbors on one side
have always parked their cars in front of my house and stomped through my
80'x5' parking strip back to their house! I have tried all of the following
without success:
Regular grass with the mandatory 2 trees - the grass died and I moved to
trees into my garden to save them from car door nicks.
Low growing Junipers with bark chip mulch - stepping on the crowns sure
will ruin em and the bark chips get kicked all over the place
Stepping stones with large size gravel - the rocks are in the street and
on the sidewalk most of the time
Fleur du lawn naturalizing lawn mix - this actually held up very well and
didn't require irrigation during our annual summer drought. It contains
baby blue eyes, sweet alyssum, creeping yarrow, English daisies, strawberry
clover and perennial rye grass that tops out at 6". You can mow it or not
and it looks good either way.
However, I got bored with it after 10 or 15 years and have been in the
process of planting my Hell Strip with perennials and ornamental grasses for
the past year. I piled yard debris over the fleur du lawn last spring and
let it compost, then tilled the whole thing and started planting. I found
the Mantis tiller far and away does the best job in such a narrow space and
I had a nice fluffy loam to plant into. I began planting in July last year
and continued into October. This spring, I am delighted to see my strip
filling out. I do believe it is going to look like the pictures in Lauren
Springer's book! :) I am still adding perennials & grasses and fine tuning
my plantings.
I guess the bonus is that no one steps in it and the neighbors now park in
front of their own house because its too hard to get out of their cars while
dodging the little white fence I put on the street side. There's nothing
like a new project to get your juices flowing!
Marilyn Dube'
Natural Designs Nursery
Portland, Oregon
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-perennials@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On Behalf
Of Don Martinson
Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 11:18 PM
To: perennials@hort.net
Subject: Hell Strip - addition
What sort of planting in a strip next to the street would stand up
best to foot traffic?
--
Don Martinson
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
l*@wi.rr.com
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