Let’s Create a Secret Garden! Part 4

This is the last installment of the Secret Garden project – finishing touches! I so love when the time comes in a project to wrap things up! If you haven’t had a chance to read parts 1-3, the links are below.

Secret Garden Part 1 – Prepping the area

In part 1, I removed the grass and gave it to a neighbor. I then bought a focal point for the Secret Garden – a 3-tiered, 60″ tall water fountain and created a garden area around it with edging bricks. You can read all about that part of the project here.

Secret Garden Part 2 – Walkway & Plants

Part 2 of the Secret Garden project is all about adding a walkway between the existing gardens and planting the new garden around the water fountain – the focal point of the whole area! You can read all about that part of the project here.

Secret Garden Part 3- Building a picket fence

Part 3 of the Secret Garden project is all about building a picket fence! This is the first time I have attempted to build a fence so I was not positive that it would work out. The wood I used is reclaimed from when we had to replace our decking last year. I am so pleased that the fence actually came together! You can read all about the process here.

Painting the bench

The first finishing touch was to paint the bench that sat outside the new picket fence. We’ve had it for a few years & it had faded. I decided to change the color to a tealish blue. Before painting, I washed it down & scrubbed it with a brush. Some of the metal had begun to rust so I used a wire brush to scrape off as much as I could.

I bought two cans of Rustoleum spray paint and ended up using about ½ of the 2nd can. Using cardboard to protect the grass, I started spraying the bottom of the bench. Once the bottom was dry, I turned the bench upright and sprayed the rest of the metal. The new color is perfect with the color of the fence!

Painting the brackets

The next finishing touch was to conceal the shiny silver of the brackets that hold the crossbars on the picket fence. This is just a personal preference but the little bit of matte black paint was enough to help the brackets ‘disappear’. Using a small artist brush, I applied two coats of exterior black paint to the brackets.

Adding plants

Now that the picket fence was finished, I could plant the roses on the outside by the posts. The 2 roses I bought were in 2-gallon containers. I didn’t actually pay attention to the size because it was all the nursery had. I’m sure you remember that our soil is VERY rocky. It took me quite some time to dig holes big enough for the roses. But, now I know that I could have dug holes for the fence posts 🙂

After planting the roses, hubby said he would love to have more roses so I went on the hunt. I knew our local nursery was out of roses so I went to Home Depot & saw that they had a fresh shipment of light pink ones! They were only in gallon buckets too! They also had several gallon-sized perennials for $3!!! I bought 4 to plant inside the picket fence with the new roses. Digging the holes for the gallon-sized plants now seemed easy, lol!

Adding an entryway

After I finished the Secret Garden project and the fence was installed, hubby and I thought it would look better to have the flagstone span the space between the two side gardens. So…back to the flagstone supplier, I went. I bought several more pieces of flagstone and brought them home. Following the same process of ‘planting’ the stones, I filled the area from brick to brick. Since the new section was not level with the existing flagstone, I ended up having to lift those stones to level the area. When all the flagstone was set in place, I filled the space around each stone with soil. Having stone from side to side looks so much better! Wouldn’t you agree?

Unique gate latch holder

Creating a seating area

Project is complete!

Supplies Used

• Small garden rake
• Garden gloves
• Kneeling pad
• Rustoleum paint in matte black
• Small paintbrush
• Rustoleaum spray paint in Lagoon
• 2 1-gal pink roses
• 4 1-gal perennial plants
• 2 1-cu ft bags of soil
• 20 12″ x 12″ cement bricks $3 ea = $60
• Metal flamingo $40
• 2 outdoor vinyl chairs with pillows
• 134 lbs of Flagstone @ $.28 = $37.69
• Garden wagon

If you need supplies

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