The walkway beds expand

My newest planting beds -- those along my new-last-year walkway -- began their expansion this past weekend.

Although I'm more than pleased with the way these beds are going, they're just not big enough. There's much more room for plants out here!

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So I started on the right side -- or is it left? Let's just be precise and call it the north side. As you can see, the bed is uniform width, about 3' wide:

Here it is from the other side:

I've got a couple of ideas on how I may want to widen this permanently, but for now I'm just going to cut off the corners (or am I adding corners?):

I couldn't really get a good shot of both of them at once. The corner near the sidewalk is bigger, and got a nice infusion of compost and manure:

New plants went in immediately:

That's a new Iris that I got from Mike the other day, and one of my new Heuchera ('Marmalade'). There's also a small Agastache rugosa (Korean mint) there, next to the for-now larger Agastache foeniculum. There's room for another few plants too -- I'll plant those soon.

The other corner closer to the house won't be planted as fully, so I wasn't going to amend the soil...

...but then I decided it was essential that I did. I once read that the secret to a productive garden is to add compost whenever your spade/shovel touches the soil. I love that advice, and wish I remembered who said it! So in the organic stuff went:

And then...

...in went the whiskey barrel! That's right, I'm going to add a little water garden!

I used paving slab pieces to keep the barrel raised off the soil. This will help prevent rotting, and provide a hiding place for wildlife. I was going to use three full pavers as a base, but it was too difficult to get level. So I broke one slab into 4 pieces and used three of them for support.

I was concerned about the exposed edges of the wood on top too:

How would I protect them? Then I remembered that I bought a few Plantainers 3 years ago, and it just so happens...

...that they were designed to fit a half whiskey barrel!

So this vessel is ready to be filled with water...

...but that's another post. Sorry!

I have a feeling that this is going to be my favorite planting bed in a month or so.

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