2022 GARDEN PLANS
First, let’s kick off with a few accomplishments from 2021:
Installed beds around the patio
Installed the vegetable garden raised beds and walkway
Removed dying poplar tree in the backyard
Planted new redbud and hydrangea standard and about a million other perennials, annuals, and vegetables
On to 2022:
Finish planting the right side of the fenced-in vegetable garden. The raised beds were full all season long but I didn’t get around to removing the grass and planting up the area on the other side of the walkway. Unfortunately, I don’t have a solid plan for what I’d like to see here. All annuals? Perennials or shrubs that the deer usually eat? It only gets direct sun for about 1-2 months out of the year so that’s making things difficult.
Create a border between the mulch and the patio. Every time it rains some mulch gets washed onto our patio, so I’d like to find a border I like that will keep everything in place. This is also a low point in the yard, so the border will have to still allow for proper drainage.
Replace the plantings in the bay window bed and come up with a new plan for that shady area. The heuchera I planted there last year didn’t pan out the way I wanted them to. They just sort of deteriorated throughout the season and I doubt they’ll come back this spring. I still need to do a bit more research on why that happened, but I’m pretty sure it’s not entirely uncommon. (10 points to you if you can spot the cat in the picture below)
The biggest project of the year: plant up the right side of the backyard. I’ve been adding garden beds to the perimeter of my backyard in stages, doing one side of the yard per year. This year it’s the right side’s turn. There are 4 evergreen arborvitae there (planted in 2019) to serve as an evergreen backdrop and we had a very large tree that unfortunately had to be removed this past year. That will be replaced (I’m thinking a river birch) and a huge garden bed will be added to that side of the yard, swooping along to the back wall.
Since all of those projects will take up 99% of my gardening energy for the year, my last goal is to be more on top of maintenance. I want to put a garden zoning plan in place so each bed gets the pruning, weeding, and edging attention it needs each month. I’ll be sure to fill you in on my plans once I’ve figured them out!