Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

We live near the edge of our residential neighborhood and about 100 yards away the zoning becomes commercial. About two decades ago a business on the commercial side started to buy up some lots to make a parking lot. Our neighbor feared they were after the vacant lot beside her so she bought it first. For nearly a decade it sat and she kept it mowed.

Shortly after I retired my wife and neighbor were yacking one evening and one of them said wouldn't it be nice if this were a garden. My neighbor works a lot and doesn't have time but I had just retired and my wife lives to garden. So my wife and I have been gardening our neighbor's vacant lot now for the past decade. The neighborhood enjoys it -- we plant flowers up front and vegetables in the back.

But it can get expensive -- we spend hundreds of dollars a year on plants etc. So in order to keep the costs down (and since I'm retired with nothing better to do) we start in the Spring driving a circuit of the various big stores that set up garden centers. The bigger the store the better as they are more likely to fail to take care of the plants. We make the drive about twice a week and what ends up in the garden is often dictated by what the crew at Lowe's etc. forgot to water. They put the plants on clearance for often as little as one or two dollars and we rescue them.

So here's a little gallery of some of the recuses from this season along with a view of the whole garden from last year. We went heavy on the mandevillas this year -- we got the first two from Walmart for $12.99 each and then couldn't pass up a buy one get two free clearance at Ace. The Walmart mandevillas recovered magnificently. We got about eight dahlias from Lowe's for $2.00 each that were so far gone I didn't even wait to get them home but put them in a cart and borrowed the watering hose from one of the crew. Most of them recovered.

Joe

Last year's garden

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Rescued from Lowe's

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Rescued from Ace Hardware

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Rescued from Ace Hardware -- my favorite

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Rescued from Lowe's

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Rescued from Walmart

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Hal81 Loc: Bucks County, Pa.

Good deed.

JohnR Loc: The Gates of Hell

Not only a great garden - pretty good photography too! Well done!

SpikeW Loc: Butler PA

Beautiful and I hope you can keep up. I got my mandevillas at Lowes for $5.00 and it was so happy to have a new home it has been blooming ever since. Nice pictures too.

mffox Loc: Avon, CT

Congrats to you and your wife for making one corner of the world better!!

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I was expecting vegetables. That is what folk usually do with vacant lots here. Nice pix in any case.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

The vegetables are in the back behind the flowers. Last year 100 pounds of cucumbers (pickles in basement) this year squash and peppers with more vegies in our backyard.

Joe

Quixdraw Loc: x

Very attractive photos, very beautiful concept and execution!

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

What a beautiful use of that space!

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Nice; congrats.

merrytexan Loc: georgia

that is a wonderful story and such a beautiful garden, ysarex. I have rescued a few plants that
were in "intensive care"...it's amazing how a drink of water and a nice hole to grow in perks them up.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Thanks all,

Glad you enjoyed the photos.

Joe

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

And so many of them will recover and bloom again. We have Pentas we saved from Ace this season that are blooming beautifully right now and when we got them they were on death's door. Most of the stores have separate clearance sections I refer to as death row. Once a plant ends up there they stop making any effort to take care of it.

Joe

Katydid Loc: Davis, CA

What a heartwarming story with photos to go with it!

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

Very good series, Joe.