Reine,

I understand. A fish fry sounds like sound doctrine to me!

just don't use the heads for fertilizer...

Here are photos of what the church flower beds look like now. Though the weeds have been mowed down you can still see them.

And l am wrong as to the dimensions, the bed is more like 45 feet long. I am no good at guessing measurements








These last two photos are at the entrance to the family life center, where the eating happens And lots of other activities. I don't think these little bushes bloom. Some color is definitely needed here.




Well, these are what l would like to see transformed into something pleasing to look at.

Oooooh! Reine! You have a clean slate to work with! You are going to have so much fun!!! Since you have your evergreen bushes in place, I would plant a combination of colorful perennials/ bulbs etc, and a few annuals for a pop of color. Of course you would have to replace the annuals each year. Oh, and use LOTS of fresh mulch and some weed cloth or newspapers below it. Does it need soil?

Here are a few links with suggestions for low maintenance, drought tolerant plants...may some members of the church have some of these to share. These would add color also.

http://www.birdsandblooms.com/...

http://www.hillcountrymasterga...

http://buchanansplants.com/201...

That is a great area to work with. I can picture more roses planted near the existing rose bushes.

A sign-up sheet at the church might be a good idea. Each person who wants to donate can sign up and give a donation for the plants you need to buy. But why stop there? Since you are willing to do the work, the congregations should be willing to kick in, each to their own ability. Some folks might donate an hour of sweat; others might donate money; others may only be able to make suggestions as to color and plant choice if they have no money to spare; some might just be nice enough to bring you lemonade and cookies and keep your spirits up while you do the work.

Make a list of all the materials for the project:

weed block fabric
soil amendments
slow-release fertilizer
mulch
plants; annuals, perennials, ground-cover, bulbs
etc.

What grabbed my eye was the paving stones and stone blocks - you already have most of what you need for raised beds, except the soil.

As others have suggested: add lots of mulch (and compost, if you can get it cheaply). That will start enriching and softening the soil. It may also increase its height slightly: starting to fill the raised beds..

When you plant plants or sow annuals or even pull weeds, dig down somewhat as you add compost and soil amendments. That increases the root zone depth.

After a few years of that, you might TURN all the soil in-between the bushes, and add a LOT of compost and mulch at that time (plus anything inexpensive like crushed stone or coarse sand or topsoil or leaf mulch or ...).

That will make all the soil deeper and taller and start to fill up your raised beds.

I would avoid raising the beds as the building is low to the ground. It appears that the land is sloped away from the building on purpose.

Good point, Greene. They don't want to irrigate the basement!

@Reine
I happened to come across this list of plants that many help you choose some nice things for your church.
http://www.hillcountrymasterga...

Also, if you look in road medians, parks, and the flower beds in stores and such, you will often find many things that do well with low maintenance heat and frost tolerant. I know here in Kingwood, there is a lot of loropetalum, Society Garlic, bulbine, variegated shell ginger, heritage roses, day lilyies, azaleas, dwarf bottle brush, etc. in full sun beds.

Also, I will be pulling up some pink crinum and blue ruellia. If you would like, you can have them for your church. If you have some low areas I have some orange bog iris, too. I have some orange Angel Trumpt seedlings but they are hardly trees. If you want to take some and baby them into something bigger, you are welcome to them. Most of what I have is for shade but I do have a few sun items.

Thanks again y'all for all these great suggestions and websites.

I really like the idea of native plants, but all the plants mentioned are worthy of planting. If no one else shows much interest in what is planted, l'll have to restrain myself from going crazy with lots of color.

Tonight is the business meeting and all of y'all have provided me with lots of information to bring with me.

I'm really excited.

@Cheryl The pink crinum and blue ruellia both will be lovely. Actually, anything suitable would be great.

Good luck tonight!

I'm excited too!

I think you have good info and the right mind set. Good Luck.

Business meeting went well. After discussion, it was agreed upon to buy pine bark nuggets. We will have a work day on the 16th. I hope at least 10 people will participate in weeding and spreading the mulch.

Next month we will discuss plants in more detail. I'm eager to get to that part. All my plants are in pots or tubs and for the most part they're not real pretty to most people.

I'll take photos.

Sounds good. I hope the landscape fabric/Preen was approved as using those will cut the down on the maintenance needed in the future. Later you can push back the mulch, cut a hole in the landscape fabric and add all the plants you want.

Congratulations! I hope you find a good (cheap) source of bark.

"Nuggets" sound like the right size for weed suppression. Anything from a few inches down to 1/2" is great, and some 1/4" might not hurt. Too much fine stuff lets weeds sprout and thrive right in the bark layer. At least they're easier to pull.

My neighbor moved in and laid down landscape fabric, then covered that with bark, int4ndiong to kill everything and create a no-effort yard (he has leg problems, and is pretty old).

But the Bozo he hired laid down very FINE bark, and of course weeds loved that. Then he went around with a big sprayer that must have been loaded with some potent, persistent herbicide. Nothing has grown since, and some of my bushes on the border still look like they have a bad case of leprosy.

P.S. That Bozo also had the task of distinguishing weeds from ornamental plants, and asked me for help. He not only didn't know that azaleas and rhodies are NOT weeds, but he couldn't tell them apart - even AFTER having them pointed out. How can you confuse a rhodie with an azalea? Maybe he's an Animal Kingdom chauvinist: "Those plants all look the same to me".

And he dropped wood-handled tools on the ground, and left them laying there in the rain, to split and rust. Bozo!

A person who is willing to ask for help is a person who is willing to learn.
Rick, I think your neighbor would benefit from a bit of help from a neighbor.

He's even more private than Becky, who is VERY private. After he moved in, I kept trying to strike up a conversation, but he didn't want to and eventually explained that it was very painful for him to stand up, so he wanted to GO SIT DOWN.

(But not chat.)

These over-55 manufactured home parks don't give people much privacy, so when someone doesn't want company, the polite thing is to give it to them.

I kept offering to plant things, share cut flowers, prune his lilac or rose bush, but NO.

But he let me make a phone call when I locked myself out of the house, and when a weed I was pulling let go suddenly and I almost did a back-flip that crushed my skull, he limped over to make sure I was OK, as I gathered myslef to climb back to my feet.

So he's as good a neighbor as he can be, given his legs, desire for privacy and lack of gardening genes.