Chips Ahoy!

Decided to rework the garage side bed along the Stroll Garden. Actually, I only removed one plant, some Japanese Forest Grass that I had temporarily placed near the gate. It was getting crowded out by the Hosta and the Lilies. It's now in a bucket waiting for a new home. Unfortunately, I am running out of places to put plants.

I also thinned out the Super Blue Liriope (Liriope mascara 'Super Blue') along the edge. I will use the cuttings elsewhere in the Stroll Garden. It was getting thick and starting to spread into the bed away from the edge. Looks like this thinning may end up being an annual event. In the long term, not sure what to do with all these annual cuttings - perhaps donate them to friends.

The major change in the bed was to use large pine bark chips as mulch instead of regular mulch. In the past the brown mulch always looked nice until the first rain. There is no gutter, so an enormous amount of rain can fall from the garage roof, and a heavy rain can be like a flood. Most of the mulch tends to wash away or into the pea stone. The Liriope on the edge helped, but there was always an exposed trench after a big rain. 

Using the large pine chips should help solve that problem. It still helps with weeds, but really shouldn't move. Also, I may get a few years out of this before it needs to be replaced, unlike the mulch which was an annual project and expense. The pine bark also looks nice.