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Posted by Sunset, March 27, 2008 in Ornamentals

By Jim McCausland, Sunset senior garden writer
Photos © Darcy Daniels, Bloomtown Garden Design

P2210013_2 Sometimes a tatty garden space looks almost too dismal to tackle. That’s where a good garden designer like Darcy Daniels comes in: she has the vision to see what’s possible and the experience to make it happen. In one corner of Grant and Suzanne Malin’s Portland garden, Daniels chose a fairly simple solution that used bamboo to quickly screen out a neighbor’s house, a curving gravel path to draw visitors into the garden and keep them out of the mud, and perennials and sedges to fill in around the edges with texture and color.

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To keep the bamboo in bounds (it’s a spreading species), Daniels has it surrounded by a plastic root barrier that extends well underground and a couple of inches above ground.

She doesn’t conceal the top of the barrier with mulch because surface roots would eventually crawl through the mulch and over the barrier; instead, she screens the barrier with low perennials such as bergenia.

More on landscaping with gravel

More inspiring paths

Comments

What a stunning and inviting garden. Well done, Darcy!

Posted by:Lisa Albert | March 27, 2008 at 10:25 AM

I love that Bamboo...it makes everything else go bye-bye! The design was spot on.
Shirley Bovshow

Posted by:Shirley Bovshow "EdenMaker" | March 28, 2008 at 02:51 PM
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