My Black Thumb

So, awhile back, I made a post about our first raised flower bed.

We were first-timers.

My vision came to life, and we were pretty proud of ourselves.

For the sake of keeping this blog honest and about how life really is, I'd like to update you on said flower bed.

All the plants died.

I was very sad.

All my little bushes died off, slowly. One by one.

In my defense, I got pregnant and I cared about nothing else in the world. Gardening was just not my priority, plus we had spent $200+ on this flower bed and we were not prepared to invest any more on it while trying to stock a baby room.

So it sat. All dead and lonely.

I pulled the bushes out and left the bed barren.

Here's what happened: we had to dig out so much of this red Tennessee clay and backfill it, and we didn't account for the settling that would happen. I didn't pack down the dirt (mainly because we were tired of buying and hauling the insane amount of bags of dirt it took to fill it up) and so while the dirt settled, the plants' roots were becoming exposed at the top. It probably could have been fixed before they died.

So. Baby arrived, spring was in the air...so I fixed it!

Original attempt:

Here it is, for the second time: Our Second Raised Flower Bed!

Good as new! The bushes are super small, but we didn't want to put much more money into it as we will be moving at the end of the summer. At least the pavers didn't settle! That was the hardest part to do!