Garden of the Day: Carroll Gardens Make-over

The GOTD submissions keep rolling in...
We bought our place in 2004 and have been DIY renovating ever since. The garden is one of the first things we tackled as we wanted to get everything in and out through the house without damaging anything newly reno-ed inside (10 foot tree through the living room anyone?), and at least we had a little piece of paradise while going through the upcoming renovations (for a while the yard was the only clean, dust-free place!).

We took an above-ground swimming pool out but kept some of the decking. There's a deck right up to the back of the house, some large planters along the wall opposite the fence, and a long 'boardwalk' deck that leads to the awesome shed (not pretty to look at but amazed at how much we can stuff into it!).

We never had a soil test done except for my own cheesy ph test but amended the soil with what seemed like tons of topsoil, peat, sand, compost (from the city giveaway) etc. Most plants are perrenials from Mazzone's, the Greenmarket, BBG, or Shannons. The fence is from Lowes. It's definitely been a joy doing all the research and then having everything grow so successfully without much previous horticultural knowledge. It's always tough staying ahead of the weeds, but overall we've gotten tons of use, pleasure, and satisfaction from having this little yard.
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Comments

from the before and after pics it looks like you had some nice old victorian cottage industry-type brick buildings as a backdrop which have now been demolished.

Posted by: dittoburg at July 21, 2008 11:57 AM

Love the large irregular slate slabs. Did you find those locally?

Posted by: Susan Elkins at July 21, 2008 12:03 PM

Does anyone know a good place to get soil tested?

Posted by: Frederick Law Homestead at July 21, 2008 12:48 PM

owner here:
yes the garage behind us was demolished in the winter...
hoping it's not replaced with a sunshineblocking
monstrosity.

my dh bought the stones in long island...i dont know where :-(

Posted by: CGmodern at July 21, 2008 12:50 PM

We did some soil testing through UMASS Amherst

http://www.umass.edu/plsoils/soiltest/

fast easy and affordable. They send the results via email or mail.

Posted by: route 10 at July 21, 2008 12:55 PM

Sounds like you di -exactly what we are doing now. Can you shar with us the varieties of what you have planted? What is that yellow flowering plant growing between the stones? And I love that daintly purple flower? Plese share. Thanks!

Posted by: HomeSweetstuy at July 21, 2008 10:43 PM

CGModern,

You must be an urbanbaby frequentor. LoL

Very Nicely done!

Posted by: PutnamStoner at July 21, 2008 11:57 PM

owner here:
the shots are from the late spring when bstoner first started the 'garden of the day' feature so alot of the flowering fabulousness is toast now.

The little purple/blue flowers are that creeping phlox...it's absolutely magical when in bloom...after they flower they look sort of 'piney' or like rosemary with soft needles. I think i got them at Lowes last year. They're pretty common. They're a great fast, easy growing plant.

The big light yellow flowering thing is scotch broom.

Between the stones we've got a mixture of creeping thyme,
golden moneywort (or a 'creeping jenny'), and irish moss.

Then we've got some ornamental grasses (zebra), an oak leaf hydrangea, a lace cap hydrangea, lavendar, bleeding hearts, ladies mantle, clematis, tulips in the spring....and a bunch of things i can't quite remember the names of right now. I have to say as much as i love just about everything, there are some things that may be a bit too big in scale now (hydrangeas, scotch broom) that need a good pruning.

thanks for the nice comments! good luck in your yards!

Posted by: CGmodern at July 22, 2008 10:25 AM

This is simply beautiful. Thanks for listing your flowers. If you ever hear from your dh about where he found those stones, please pass it on. Thanks.

Posted by: Renogirl at July 23, 2008 3:58 PM

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July 21, 2008

Garden of the Day: Carroll Gardens Make-over

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