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Hello,

I wondered if anyone could please give me advice regarding a corner of my garden that I'm considering revamping.

I have attached two photos below with regards to this.

Along the side of my shed, I have a very narrow strip of soil which I have thought of doing the following and wondered what readers thought would be the best option:

- Using it as a flowerbed

- Turfing over it; this would involve putting grass all the way up to the shed wall and would mean having to mow that last part of the lawn ''side on'' to cut properly

- Putting down bark to mask the existing strip of soil

If I was going to go for the flowerbed option:

I have plenty of perennials around the garden but if I am to plant shrubs etc..., I was thinking of evergreens on the strip by the shed so that they would mask this soil strip/flowerbed all year round. The problem with this is the ''overhang'' on to the lawn (which of course I can keep well trimmed), but I wondered if anyone had any ideas of small slow growing evergreen shrubs that would be suitable for this strip?

The second issue is that the flowerbed which meets with the strip of soil by the shed is drastically raised and cannot be levelled off to the level of the soil strip. This is due to the way the fence has been put in which is the boundary fence for both me and my next door neighbour.

Where the flowerbed drastically raises, I currently have a rosebush there that I am going to remove and plant elsewhere. I am wanting to purchase a fast growing evergreen plant that will grow outwards and will screen/mask the drastic drop that is currently very visible.

I would be very grateful for any advice that anyone could please give to me.

Many Thanks

Turfing over, bad idea, lawn mower will not do sides.

Bark looks nice but soon dries out, shrinks and becomes worm food.

Any fast growing plant will do just that, grow fast, it will never stop. (We had Russian vine, grows very fast, even if you chop it regularly it just carries on growing, and it grows from everywhere it can.)

How about gravel? doesn't grow, never needs watering, does need occasional weeding.

Why not put trellis on the shed and grow annual climbers up.

One issue to consider is getting access to maintaining the shed. With this in mind, I would look at a low maintenance surface of using some form of gravel or stone chips over a weed barrier membrane. The blue slate chips look particularly nice. You could then use this as a base for a composter, a plastic garden store or another use. Any planting will struggle as it does not appear to get a lot of light and then you have to maintain it. Just a thought.

DWD

At the risk of going against the grain I would say a big NO to gravel. Terrible idea next to grass. It will inevitably migrate onto the grass and it's so easy for the mower to flip a piece some distance and to hit glass or damage something. It's also awkward to get a neat edge between the two. Power tools are out because of them flicking the gravel and hand tools catch the gravel and either blunt or bind.
Personally I'd go with a flowerbed. Clean up and paint/stain the shed , form the bed with a "gutter" on the edge of the grass and pretty low plants such as primroses. Anything high will make repainting the shed a pain. I'd also fit some guttering to the shed.

Just a point here G you will see that there is a wide slab path between the lawn and this side area, I doubt a mower or any power tools would come close. Easy enough to kerb it slightly to prevent gravel drift. I just saw chips as an easy solution in this instance.

DWD

I would plant some small bushy shrubs there , the best ones for a area like that are euonymus shrubs .
Once established they will tolerate sun, shade , drought or being waterlogged, they are a variegated type of shrub and you can get low growing ones for ground cover or more upright varieties and all of them only need a light trim to tame them if they get taller than a couple of feet.

Because they are all evergreen you will have interest all year and if there are a few gaps while they are getting established in the first year just plant a few annuals to give a bit of colour.

Mike

dewaltdisney wrote: ↑Sun Apr 17, 2022 8:16 am Just a point here G you will see that there is a wide slab path between the lawn and this side area, I doubt a mower or any power tools would come close. Easy enough to kerb it slightly to prevent gravel drift. I just saw chips as an easy solution in this instance.

DWD

It's more the junction between the grass and the gravel that would be a problem. It's something I encounter quite often. The grass does what grass does and spreads into the gravel and it's more difficult to keep that junction neat. If going for gravel I'd put in a highish edging to keep the gravel in place and not on the lawn.