Making a Hellstrip Garden Part 1

Salt Tolerant, Juglone Tolerant, Deer Resistant, & Rabbit Resistant Plants used

Reasons to Create a Hellstrip Garden

Today I am going to start a project that I envisioned about a year ago, which is I don’t want grass at the perimeter of my property anywhere. So far I’ve gotten the front of the home done mostly, and I’ve eliminated the hellstrip and I’ve built that little walk path you see in the center. As you can see, originally, this was just connected to my neighbor’s yard, which, you know, sometimes because the properties are connected, you don’t necessarily notice the boundaries, the neighbor may cut the grass and maybe it’s not how you like it to be. It wasn’t how I liked it to be. So I did start putting some boundaries with plants. That was initially my concept. 

The more that I’ve learned, the more that I have a better understanding of how this entire ecosystem works. And I have learned the importance of incorporating native plants in my landscape. And my goal is not only to incorporate them. I want mostly native plants in this yard and very happy with the results so far, especially since I am a relatively new gardener. I’m really enjoying it and I’m loving it so far and I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from my neighbors, people that are just passers-by that are enjoying the yard. And I’m also getting a lot of great feedback from the environment itself. There’s plenty of bees in the yard where I didn’t see that before. I’ve got a bunch of monarchs, I’ve got caterpillars. I’m very excited and very pleased so far. 

But today, what is prompting me to go ahead and start the project that I am starting today, I’ve actually already started, but as you can see, the edge of my home still has lawn and I don’t want it. I live on the corner street again and corner block and what happens a lot is that people tend to trespass through the yard. They walk their animals in the yard. They defecate it in the yard. And initially, I was just wanting to have a green lawn. I wanted my yard to look nice. Look, there’s a monarch. Look at that up. And as you can see, it’s flying away. But that’s what I’m talking about. I am on a journey to build an oasis in an urban area. And this is what I’m doing.

So today I was outside and someone walked past with their dog. They started here, well they stopped there at the corner. And then they just turned into my yard. And I was outside. I asked her to please don’t let her dog urinate in the yard. She looked at me kind of crazy and she walked all the way through the garden into my driveway. She even… you see it’s garbage day. There’s garbage cans there. She walked behind them up into the driveway. I’m kind of over that, and I really would like to do what I can to kind of deter that from happening. It would make me happier. It feels very invasive and I would prefer to have privacy on my own property. 

I do understand that the tree lawn is actually owned by the city, a.k.a. hellstrip. However, I also understand that I’m responsible for paying taxes on it, and I’m also responsible for the care of it. And because of that, I would prefer to have something that gives me more peace of mind than turf lawn which requires a lot of inputs, including money and time from me in order to make it look a way that I find aesthetically pleasing. I much prefer flowering plants and native plants anyway, so I’m going to get rid of this perimeter.

Planning a Hellstrip

I did start cutting it out already and I said, You know what? Let me go grab my camera. But I don’t know if you can see it. There’s already like trench marks. But the only tools that I’ll be using is one person, one human person, that is willing and able to do the work, which is me. I have a bunch of flags like so that I’ll be using to mark off certain spots, I have some measuring tape, and also a shovel. It’s a spade type shovel, with a straight edge at the bottom. I prefer to use that kind of shovel when I’m cutting out lawn just because I can appreciate the straight lines that it gives. And I’m not using anything fancy.

I can already see that I’m a little crooked and I don’t care. I’ll adjust it as I need to. But the plan is to, at a minimum, this year I’ll be bordering this perimeter with this little bluestem. I’m going to leave spaces in between so that I can come back in this coming spring and plant different plants in between the bluestem. But I want little bluestem along this edge all the way until I think that I won’t have full sun. And where you see this other bed, there’ll be a curvy walk path right there until you get to my side door, which is here.

This walk path already existing when I purchased the house. But as you can see, this hydrangea bush is really impeding on that path. When I bought this home, this hydrangea bush was here. It was only about a foot tall. I’ve been here seven years and it’s beautiful and I love how it grew. But I do want this path way to kind of of curve back out toward the street some. And I want to extend it so that way there will be a path still here to this side door. My mailbox is right here and I would like to have a nice path for the mailman and anybody else who wants to come use this door. So there’ll be a path this way coming out to the street. I’ll connect it to this path as well.

So we’ll see. I don’t know how much I’ll get done before this season is over. It is September 1st, 2023, but this is what we’re doing today. So I’m going to go ahead and put this phone down. I don’t have any fancy equipment yet, like a tripod or anything like that. But I’ll pick this camera up when I’m ready to call it quits today and show you what I’ve done so far. Stay tuned.

How to Remove Lawn

By the way, I wanted to show you the technique that I’m using to get the grass up. I’m basically cutting thin strips, almost the size or the width of the shovel that I’m using. And once I cut the slits, I might start either from the top or the bottom, or the side, sometimes both. But all I’m doing is going in where there is a line cut out, pushing down, turning the shovel up and just sliding the shovel forward and picking them all up. I am. And put them in the wheelbarrow there.

Now we’re going to start planting. All right. I’ll be back soon. Bye.

Designing The Plant Layout

I got it edged out. Got part of it cut out completely and I am about to plant my little bluestem now. Well, now it’s 9/6/2023. A couple of days have passed. It is extremely hot. So I am not going to be able to do this every day. But I do, in fact, have my little bluestem planted. This is what they look like. They’re just some little babies, but they will get a few inches wide, about 3 to 4 feet tall. I spaced them out about 72 inches apart. There is one there. There’s not another one until there.

I did buy a couple of packs of bulbs. So far I’ve got a couple packs of these daffodils. They get anywhere from 12 to 18 inches high. You can put them in full sun or part shade. I got some allium. I’ll be planting those. And I will also be planting some spring native plants over the winter by seed and kind of putting those in between. There should be about three feet in between the little bluestem when they’re mature, but in the spring they will be very, very tiny. So I will keep that in mind. But this is what we’ve got so far and I will make another video as I progress. So please stay tuned and thanks for watching. Bye.