The Long Border

Garden Rooms at Havenwood, March 2024

The Long Border at Havenwood in June 2023

A Damp Prairie garden  

Very soggy, heavy soil overlaid with sand. That is the magic sauce for this area of our garden. It does not sound very promising, but it is an ideal place to grow many native plants as well as long season non-native plants which create a tapestry of color throughout the year. This is our Long Border, and it is very simple in design—a 3 foot wide pea gravel path down the middle of double-sided, mixed borders.

The Long Border at Havenwood in July 2023

Where is it?

The Long Border is at the very back of our property, and has existed in my mind since the very first winter a decade ago. It was slowly created over the past ten years as we added more shrubs and covered the grass, and eventually needed to dig up and move much of our old driveway to make room for it.

Before photos of the Long Border area at the back of our property near the fence. It was grass, many persistent weeds including ivy, and pavement.

See more photos of our garden before in Looking back: Beginning Havenwood

Here is a view taken last summer looking from the Ruin garden, across the lawn that replaced the driveway, and to half of the Long Border planting that is in front of the same privacy fence.

You can see the Long Border on our overhead photo at the top right. It runs for over a hundred feet along the back fence, from the new driveway to the shed.

Inspiration

Once we knew just how mucky and wet this area of ground was nearly year-round, we decided to model it on the native Pennsylvania prairie that has been conserved by Jennings Environmental Center, which is just a few miles south. Jennings is known for its display of native Liatris each July, and they host a festival of activities during its bloom time.