Gardening in the hardest places

Sidewalks, salt, dogs and experiments in inhospitable horticulture

I’d like to introduce you to a piece of land with dozens of aliases. On the west coast of the US, people refer to it as a sidewalk strip. Abroad, it’s known as a verge. Other folks call it a grassplot, berm, curb lawn, swale or besidewalk. But in my master gardener class, we were introduced to it as a “hellstrip.” It’s the strip of grass or plantings lo…