Building a berm…

Today, Jeff and I finished adding a new succulent bed to our garden. We planted 40 varieties of succulents and over 50 individual plants. The idea was 1. to create some visual interest in front of our compost bins–not to hide them, but to distract from them–and 2. to find a place for all the cool succulents we keep finding. At first, Jeff thought we could get away with a few small planters here and there, but when we started looking at the succulents, we found so many cool varieties that we couldn’t decide. Soooooo, we bought one of each 🙂 The results are stunning. And this new bed will also serve as a visual edge to our new back yard terrace. More picture soon on that development, we hope. But first, some pictures of the garden from start to finish.

We started this idea as a place to put some excess dirt as we were moving stuff around the back yard. So, I began a kidney-shaped pile, covered with a weed inhibiting tarp, and topped it with “cactus soil”. We planted in this special soil, and then used small pebbles to create a covering. Very nice coloration that compliments the succulents well.

Our supplies (rocks, weed tarp and border) all came from Broodmor Landscape Supply in South San Francisco. The succulents came from Floorcraft Nursery (San Francisco) and Target–yes, Target had a really nice selection of succulents.

Total time to create this new feature? Two weekends.