Now that we have planted the hedges, built the raised beds & filled them with soil we were delighted to start our favourite part of the project, planting forbs & grasses in the raised garden boxes. Note that forbs are non-woody plants with flowers, eg. sunflowers, echinacea & giant hyssop (see last week’s post).

Last Saturday, we finished filling the raised garden boxes with soil. Then with a plant list made by our students outlining the primary needs of the plants, we played around with the placement of the plants to determine the best arrangement of our forbs & grasses.

We assigned one garden box specifically for raspberries since these will spread pretty vigorously. Then we placed plants requiring more moisture in one bed and placed others that tolerate drought in another bed. Similarly, we put plants that needed more light on the northern side of the garden closer to the Admin building and plants that required more shade in the beds under the poplar tree. Then we watered the new plants. Rain later that afternoon also helped to settle the plants in their new home.