When we buy this house, we didn’t think much about outdoor space. We talked about how it would be nice to have all the old trees around, plus room for the kids to explore and the dogs to roam around. We didn’t realize how much work and maintenance this type of outdoor space would take, especially when we started to cut down all the weeds and weeds that were sprawling across each garden bed. I’ve been overwhelmed since the summer of 2020, I first thought it would be a project I could self-solutionthen fell into a state of overwhelming depression not knowing where to start.
Since then, we’ve made some decisions step by step on how to proceed with our garden and yard. We know we now have a better understanding of how we want to live and how much we want to spend on this project — both in terms of amount and scope of maintenance.
Below you’ll find our spring and summer gardening plans, along with a look at what’s coming next year…
The first step in planning our garden and yard? I asked for help.
After trying to tackle our garden and yard on my own for the past two years, I’ve had to accept the fact that I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing when it comes to gardening. I have decided to plan our garden and yard for the person I am now, not the person I hope to become.
The first step in updating our garden and yard was to hire a landscape design company (Love scene, for Twin Cities locals) to work with us on future plans for the area. A friend of mine hired Landscape Love for her yard and raved about their design prowess. We met them for the first time last month and they will give us a review plan in June. Then we’ll have a few weeks to tweak the plans and they’ll roll out the revisions. updated in 2023. The process of planning exactly what the end result will be is a charge beyond the actual setting, which is something I really appreciate. In my view, this process will help provide us with an updated roadmap and a better understanding of how we can break down costs and progress in a way that works for us.
In terms of high-level updates for next year, we will likely be replacing the patios and many of the courtyard walls (a lot of the bricks in these areas have crumbled), both at the front and back of the house. home. The designers intended to create a design that keeps the garden area lush in the backyard. We’ll also be changing the exterior color of the house, although we’re not sure when that will happen. If you’re curious to see more, I’ve saved inspiration to share with our landscape designer on this board on Pinterest.
My gardening plan for this year
This year, the plan is to focus on updates that we can actually do ourselves, based on our bandwidth. Here’s the gist of our gardening plan for 2022:
1. We recently cleared up debris in the yard that wasn’t treated before it snowed.
2. We will hire someone to remove the trees that have been dead for a while. We are trying to maintain the existing healthy development as much as possible. We will address this sometime between April and June.
3. We will hire someone to clear the lawn and put the new grass seeds down. We expect this to be done within the next month or so.
4. I bought the light bulb from Breck’s (tulips and foxgloves) that I will be planting throughout my backyard garden in April. It’s not the optimal time, but it’s still cold enough to plant them here, so I’ll give it a try.
5. In terms of additional garden design elements, this year the focus will be on container gardens. We plan to add potted plants at the front, flanking the front door, as well as a patio area in the back. I’m happy to use container gardens to bring more color to our outdoor spaces, since basically all the plants are green now. I’m working on a design project and am currently getting inspiration for these containers. I also bought a course on gardening in containers on Create Academy to help me purposefully plan our container garden. The teacher of the course, Arthur Parkinson, was amazing!
What’s your spring gardening plan? Do you have any tips to share? I want to hear in the comments.
Kate is currently learning to play the ukulele, leaving her husband, children and dogs desperate. Follow her on Instagram at @witanddelight_.
