Gardens | Guest Posts | Outdoors

Making a Fantasy Spiral Garden Reality

Hi ToolBox Divas! I’m Blake Loftus (yes, still a diva, just a unisex first name lol) of . We moved from the sunny beaches of Florida to the Blue Ridge Mountains of south western Virginia in 2013 where we bought a small sustainable family farm raising miniature laMancha dairy goats, chickens, rabbits, pigs. Oh and we grow organic produce.  So I thought, it being spring and all, I’d share with you all my Do-It-Yourself fantasy spiral garden.

There are so many spiral garden plans and pictures floating around Pinterest and gardening blogs, I’ve fantasized about my own for years. You know, just a small – maybe 6’ wide – circular garden with some adorable little scalloped paver, or even rocks that my kids can paint. Something just big enough to grow kitchen herbs like rosemary, sage, basil, oregano, thyme, mingled amongst some bright marigolds or purple petunias. Something a like this perhaps:

I’ve read the blogs, seen the process and finished results of these sweet spiral gardens, and couldn’t wait to build my own when we first moved into our little rental cabin in the mountains. What I wasn’t expecting was that our landlords had the same vision, but on a MUCH larger scale. They had just finished building and moved into their large home on the property and had a 30’ wide and 15’ high mound of raw earth that had been excavated to make way for their basement. For  several years the massive pile of dirt had been sitting there, waiting… When we arrived at the farm,  it became a favorite play spot for our children and goats!

With quite a lot of help from myself, my husband, and occasional helping hands from friends, we transformed this dirt pile into one of the most impressive spiral  gardens I’ve ever seen! Large pavers had been salvaged and collected over the years for this project, so all the raw materials were already on hand – along with shovels.

Following the natural contours of this mini-mountain, we started out by shoveling out stairs for a pathway to main second level about 4’ above the actual ground. Once pavers were in place to support the “stairs” by keeping dirt and side walls in place, we shoveled out and leveled a pathway that wrapped around the widest part of the future garden.

Leveling the main pathway.

 

 

This was such an extensive project (but TOTALLY do-able for any family or couple to accomplish together). The same large pavers were stacked snugly against  the dirt walls around entire garden to keep the 30” walking path and actual planting beds separate and well-supported. The top of this spiral garden was so tall that larger flat rocks were wrapped around the highest level, with a metal sculpture and native plants (autumn olives, milkweed) decorating the very top.

Once completed, composted manure and hay were added to the garden beds to enrich the soil and the results were breathtaking!

We finished the garden with black coated metal fence bought at Lowe’s (the most expensive part of the whole project) – to make it less appealing for deer and rabbits, and to maximize the spiral appearance with the scrolling leaf pattern. After this experience, the little spiral herb garden I’ve always imagined will be a piece of cake to build myself this spring! I hope this gives you some inspiration in realizing just how far you can take any garden plan to any scale while adding your own creative touch!

For More Information on & Blake head over to Facebook and be sure to  check out their store where they sell natural body butter, bug spray, extract and much much more!

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