Birth of a Berm

Berms might be the latest craze, but the Garden of Nemesis berm was accidental. It happened like this:

There are two houses on our lot and when we bought the place, a big hump of dirt was between them. We got rain water in the cottage basement, which was slightly downhill from the front bungalow and blamed the hump. One day in 2001, our next door neighbor had hired a guy with a bobcat to do some dirt moving. My husband and I decided to ask the contractor what he would charge to remove the hump. The guy offered us a good price and proceeded to scoop up the first shovelful. Then he asked the fateful question, “Where do you want it?” I had assumed he would take that useless dirt with him!

2004

I gazed out over our empty lot next door, which we had purchased also. He was waiting with his load, so I quickly pointed to the far corner up front. Now we had a pile of dirt, which after the first rain became a mud pile. We shored the whole thing up with the biggest logs we could handle and I started to plant.

2005

It was a great strawberry bed for the first few years and also held whatever I didn’t know what to do with. We gradually replaced the rotting logs with limestone we had picked up from the ditches a few miles north. I must admit, it looked pretty bad for a few years, but the sod was so rich that the strawberries were phenomenal.

2006

The trees planted in 2001 grew and grew and I gradually moved the strawberries elsewhere. Last fall, I finally got around to a more complete refurbishing.

2007

In the front, where it gets the most sun, coneflowers, bee balm and yarrow flourish right behind the shorter alliums and cascading sedum. On the shaded inside, there are hostas, coral bells, flowering tobacco and other shade lovers. In the places where there is filtered sun, daylilies and veronica. We moved the birdbath and added a cement bench to match.

2012

In the late afternoon, I rest on the bench often and enjoy the mud pile that became a berm.

Now

Spring 2013