When do you start thinking about gardening for the next season? It has become a tradition of mine to plan next year’s garden during the week after Christmas. Usually by this time, I have not touched dirt for a couple months. All I had were indoor plants and dried flowers:
2022 will be our fifth planting season. When we bought this property, it was covered in poorly grown lawn and lots of weeds. Over the last four years, we planted hundreds of perennials and dozens of trees.
The backyard, 2017 summer
The front yard, 2017
The first two seasons on this property were devoted to establishing gardening space. In the Spring of 2018, we converted a big field of weedy lawn in our backyard to a vegetable garden. We also planted a couple perennial flower beds during Spring and Summer.
Veggie garden, 2018 summer
Backyard perennial gardens, 2018 summer
Front yard mailbox garden, 2018 summer
Fruit trees and climbing roses along the back fence, 2018 summer.
We also worked on the front yard, namely converting the northern slope into a big flower bed. It took us a couple months, and we finished just in time for Fall planting.
We enjoyed the new planting so much that we decided to plant more perennials the next year. In the Spring of 2019, we covered a large portion of the backyard with woodchip mulch and planted hazelnut trees and raspberries here.
We also added a small flower bed in the front yard to complete all the planting in the front yard.
All the perennials we planted started filling in pretty well in 2020, and we were happy with the front yard planting. However, the flower beds in the backyard looked patchy, and mowing the lawn among these mulched flower beds was a pain. During the lockdown period, I came up with a good plan for this part of the yard. I first built up the soil around the shed and created a terrace garden:
Then, I pushed the boundary of the raspberry patch further into the lawn, creating a narrow flower boarder of the entire mulched area.
Lastly, I filled all the space left to this flower border with mulch, so we no longer had any lawn to maintain on the northern side of the backyard. Coming around Fall, I planted this wavy flower boarder with peonies and Russian sage, which have grown in very nicely since.
We have yet to pave the shed patio, but the mulched garden space has been thriving.
My second big achievement in 2020 was raising my own seedlings. First it was done as a necessity, but I soon found out that it was not as difficult as I imagined. Most importantly, raising seedlings enabled me to add more varieties of perennials and vegetables without breaking the bank.
I again started my own seed in 2021, which resulted in the best vegetable garden I ever planted. The rest of the 2021 gardening effort went into reviving the lawn. Before winter hit, I covered the north side yard with cardboard and mulch, with the intention to plant a shade garden here in the future.
All of our perennials have been growing like crazy in 2021. I have a feeling that our 2022 garden will be gorgeous! We will focus on maintenance and fine-tuning the flower beds in 2022, and of course raising my own seedings and planting a big vegetable garden is a must. I also ordered two new climbing vines – a passion flower and a pink clematis called “Josephine”. We had passion flower vine before and really enjoyed their big tropical looking flowers. I hope to grow it next to the mailbox so our neighbors can enjoy it too.
Although I won’t actually start seeds until April, it comforts me to having figured everything I need to do and having everything ordered. Are you also looking forward to the next season of gardening? What is your garden plan for 2022?
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