I knew when I visited Monticello that I would be inspired, but I never thought it would be so directly. Many of you know from a recent blog post that I am planning a round garden bed to go in my back yard as an attempt to add vegetable planting space to the garden (my needs and desires have outgrown the space of the original potager). I have been struggling with the design to make it round and the right size and what to surround it with. Originally I thought about making individual quadrants and having an ornament in the center, but after visiting Monticello, I have revised those plans.

The pictures show a perfectly sized round bed surrounded by bricks sunk in the early longwise and with a bit of mortar in between. I was immediately struck by the design and have decided to emulate it in my own garden. I will put a couple of stepping stones in the garden to allow me to maneuver and weed the garden.

The only thing I am going to change is the color of the brick, it is perfectly appropriate to have the red brick at Monticello, but my garden and back yard are primarily flagstone so I thought red brick would not look good, so I shopped around and finally found a brick color that will match the flagstone! I am going to pick it up this weekend and hopefully start on this bed in a few weeks to get ready for planting fall crops in August!

Happy Gardening!