Total Garden Fail - and Then a Come Back

Front flower bed before: Swampy muck over clay,

topped with moss and funky green growth

This week brought about what felt like a "total gardening fail". Optimistic to finally have a space to plant in the ground, I went to the plant nursery and returned to our future home with armfuls of flowers and herbs that I loved and couldn’t wait to grow in our entry way.

What do we find upon attempting to plant them in the front flower bed? Sandy, mucky, water-logged soil, and deeper down: clay. The drainage was so bad we ended up digging up the whole bed, fearing some kind of leak in underground pipes. We didn’t find a leak, just an unfortunate land gradation that dumps lawn water back into the flower bed, and some old sprinklers that were soaking everything in sight.

After a night of being heartbroken that my Edenic vision wasn’t going to work, I re-grouped. I can’t afford to install a French drain, so I decided to work with what I already have and seek out some hardy plants that would be able to survive my wet, clay, shady area.

We put new tops on the sprinklers for a more controlled aim, and adjusted the sprinkler timing to morning for a shorter time. We built a stone barrier between the lawn and the flower bed to keep some of the water out. We mixed in several bags of compost/potting soil, worm castings, and used mychorrizal fungi to strengthen the roots of each plant we put in the ground.

Here's what our bed looks like now (we will cover the dirt with mulch this weekend):

Will these plants survive their new environment? Only time will tell. But I have been reminded to be ready to adjust my vision of what my garden (or my life) should be or look like, to be flexible and open to new possibilities.

From a gardening perspective, I learned that no matter how much I may love a certain plant, it doesn't necessarily mean that I should try to plant it wherever I think they should go. Instead, I am learning to work WITH nature, rather than exhaust myself trying to twist nature's arm until it bends to my will.

P.S. If you remember our sad neglected orange tree from this post, here's what it looks like after some sprucing up: much more presentable I think!

Exciting News!

Things have been very busy this summer and I have not had the time to blog as I would like to. Most of that is due to two things:

1) Growing our garden takes a lot of time. But recently even that has been neglected woefully because of the next reason:

2) We are moving! We will finally have a place to plant and grow a real garden, and we can hardly wait! We won't have to wait long, because we only have a month to fix up the new place, pack and move. Luckily, it's just across town.

I keep planning the landscape when I should be focusing on fixing up the house itself. My excuse: We can't do much until the flooring and paint is done, so in the meantime, why not dream up delicious homegrown produce and herbs?

There is a basic landscape in place, but most of the plants and trees have been torn out for some reason. All that remains is a yellow rose bush and a what appears to be a neglected dwarf orange tree:

I had a chance to ask the previous owner about this sad little tree, and she lamented that it had never produced fruit. So I have my work cut out for me, friends! The first thing I did was prune the tree, add compost, water it, and mulch it. It's looking better already and I am dreaming of oranges this winter (hope hope)! In my dreams, it's something like a miniature version of this:

Source: yourhouseandlife.blogspot.com via Lauren on Pinterest