Losing the Lawn, Bit by Bit

My husband hates to mow.  Well, he *says* he hates to mow.  He didn't seem to hate it too much a few years ago when I was inside with a crying baby and he escaped for a few hours of blissful silence (the word 'silence', here, means 'no baby screaming'). Anyway, when it comes to our lawn, the less he has to mow, the better.  So he frequently suggests that I expand the blueberry patch by another three feet, that I mulch all around the vegetable bed perimeter by another few feet, that I expand the herb garden by a few feet on each side... are you starting to form an image in your mind of how garden design works around here?

Anyway, this weekend it was my idea to expand the mulched-not-grassy area, whittling down the amount of mowable lawn by just a dozen or so more square feet.  I had several reasons for this temporary insanity.  First, I must take the wheelbarrow to the mulch pile at least every other day or my neighbors start to think maybe I've gone missing. Second, I have a lot of cleaning indoors that needs to be done and I'd like to avoid that at all costs.  And third, my parents gave me lots and lots of Russian sage Sunday morning, which I needed to plant right away.

 

I spent the hour car ride from their house to mine trying to think of where I'd plant the Russian sage. (Why can't I say no to plant give-aways!?) The only solution was to spend my entire day creating a new area in the garden.

Rather than dig (my least favorite chore in the garden-- I only dug enough to plant the sage) I put landscape cloth down over the grass by our trellis.  This may be cheating, but I love this shortcut.

I mulched all the way out to our crazy fig tree/bush/thing, creating a welcoming entrance through the garden gate.  This took all day and was a lot of hard work.  It may be just me, but hard work often seems more difficult when someone watches you the whole time, occasionally yawning loudly, as Boo is prone to do.  See her here on top of the trellis: