How Did Our Garden Grow?

I received a really nice email from someone named Angelina in New Jersey today, complimenting me on our garden transformation and asking for information on how she might get her own transformation going. So I wrote her a rather lengthy email back and then I thought, why not add it to our web site? Maybe someone else will stumble across it and get a few ideas. So here it is, slightly modified.

My husband and I have been working on our gardens ever since we bought our house in the fall of 1992. Grass is not a big priority for us so we've been digging it up and planting large beds of bulbs and perennials, and filling them in with annuals.

The first thing I did was dig out some beds across the front, in front of the porch, and plant lots of bulbs. The daffodils, tulips, and Dutch irises are still blooming, one after the other, so I have a nice display all spring. I also have some crocuses and some grape hyacinth, but not as many as I would like.

Herbs are probably the easiest plants to grow, because they thrive with neglect. Many herbs, like oregano, rosemary, thyme, and sage, grow naturally on hillsides in the Mediterranean, so they don't do well with too much water or fertilizer; I don't think I've ever fertilized mine and most of the extra water they get comes from birds splashing in the birdbath in the middle of the herb garden.

Another idea I got from a former neighbor of mine is to start annuals, like marigolds, zinnias, and impatiens, from seed in the vegetable garden in early spring, and transplant them after they're a couple months old. Here in southeast Virginia, we can start seeds in February, but in colder climates, you would have to wait until at least early April, when the ground is thawed enough to work it.

My vegetable garden is a square garden made of four-by-four pieces of wood, which my husband built. Each of the four squares is about five feet square. I like it because it's easy to reach all parts of it, for weeding and trimming the plants and harvesting the vegetables, without stepping on the soil.

Many of my first garden plants came from my mother's garden in Michigan; she came down with a station wagon full of plants one year - a shrub with little yellow flowers, primroses, hostas, lilies of the valley, and more. Others have come from trading with my neighbors for the last few years and the yard just about full now :-) Hard to believe when I think about how it looked in the beginning.

I believe the oldest plant in the yard is the peace rose directly behind the house. One of our neighbors, who has lived here for over 50 years with her husband, says she gave it to the former owners of our house many years ago.

Eventually, I started a neighborhood garden club so we can trade plants and ideas and go visit public gardens together. Also, we have a local garden center that has lots of display gardens, where they have planted most of the plants they sell, so we can go see them at different times of the year, to see what they're like. And this garden center offers free classes on different gardening topics, like shade plants, pruning shrubs, caring for roses, etc.

Gardening is a long-term thing so don't feel bad if you can't get it done all at once. Part of the fun is seeing what works and what doesn't. If something doesn't do well somewhere, dig it up and try it somewhere else.

I've done that a lot, and I've even thrown some stuff out or given them away if they don't do what I want :-)

Good luck and let me know how it's going.

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