Garden Update - Year 4

As the leaves start to turn and fall off the trees, I thought it was a good time to update the progress on the garden at our own home.  If you've been following along for awhile, you'll remember that we started with a blank slate.  

I went to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens for their Garden Design program and created a 5 year plan for our 1/2 acre yard.  It was an amazing program and I learned so much! 

Garden Design - 2023

Much of the 1/2 acre lot was a blank slate 

I guess what surprises me the most is how quickly the landscape has started to change.  And with a really wet spring, my plants exploded in size.

The garden started taking shape in year 2 and really exploded this year!

And now the yard feels totally different (or course the house changed quite a bit too!).

We have winding garden paths

A 'secret' garden, formed with trees and shrubs to hide it from the rest of the yard. 

A patio surrounded by perennials and a native stone wall (that came with the house)

And a wonderful mixture of native pollinators that attract all the bees and butterflies.

One of the biggest changes was the kitchen garden.  We inherited a large grapevine, which had taken over the garage windows.  My husband chopped it back and over the last couple of years we've gotten that side of the garage completed with new windows, siding and an arbor to support the grapes.  Now it's home to our kitchen garden.  It's still a work in progress, but it's come so far! 

Overgrown might be an understatement

And what we found underneath was pretty scary

Kitchen Garden - Year 1

Kitchen Garden Year 4

One of my favorite projects this year was fixing the old stone wall.  There was originally a dangerous stone staircase on the back of the house.  We removed most of it, but the remaining 'steps' sloped into the foundation creating water issues.  Chase from CPC Masonry came out and made it look fabulous!

Are we done?  Ha! No.  In fact, many of the Year 4 elements just didn't get done this year, so they will move to year 5.  But the change is still so dramatic and I love wandering out there to appreciate it (and pull some weeds, because seriously, there is always work to be done!)

But as much as I love the garden, I might love the sunrise more! 

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