Unless you are a mow the lawn and pull a few weeds to keep it looking more or less tidy type of person, then you know that a garden is never finished and will be thinking about new plants you can try for the coming season. In this article by Amanda which I found on the American Meadows Website she looks back on her failures and successes of the past year and sets out her plans for 2017.
As the days are now officially getting longer but are still wintery and cold, it?s the perfect time to do some garden reflection as well as plan for next season. Once January hits I like to get out the garden books, open up my garden journal and scour my favorite online resources for new ideas for spring. But before I get ahead of myself, I like to take this time to look back at the last gardening season and take note of my successes and failures.
Writer Barbara Dodge Borland once said, ?A gardener learns more in the mistakes than in the successes.? This cannot be truer! A gardener fails; it?s the nature of our hobby. But it?s in those failures that we learn what will and won?t grow in our garden, which varieties we can?t live without, as well as what we don?t have the time ? or the patience ? for.? So although we call them ?failures,? they really are little lessons that are an inherent part of the experience of gardening.
I like to jot down little wins and failures throughout the garden season so I can go back in the winter and compile them into a list to help plan for spring.
Garden Reflections: My Garden Failures From Last Season
A lot of my garden blunders from this year had to do with moving in late June to a new home with an entirely new landscape. Although I had a blast discovering the beauty of my inherited gardens, I had more space than I knew what to do with! I had also already missed half of our already-short season. Despite all this, I had a blast experimenting in these gardens and yes, failing.
Don’t let me distract you with my cute puppy: next to her is a crowded garden that desperately needs weeding!
Watering. Or lack-there-of, in my case. This may have been my biggest challenge of the season. We had an abnormally dry summer here in Vermont and our new home has a well with water pressure that leaves much to be desired. I spent most of the season battling the water pressure, hooking multiple hoses together and lugging countless pails of rainwater around from our rain barrel. Although we were grateful for the past owners to leave their rain barrel, it was inconveniently placed very far away from our existing gardens. Thankfully I planted one of my new gardens close to the spigot at the house, but you could definitely tell a difference between the gardens that were easy to water and those that had to fend for themselves.
It is a little hard to tell in this photo, but the wildflowers on the right received much more water than those straight ahead. Those that got watered more frequently were much taller and fuller.
I am a keen gardener and so created Garden Pics and Tips for people who love gardens and enjoy great pictures of plants and gardens. Also covered are practical tips on all aspects of gardening.
