How Does My Garden Grow?

I am NOT a gardener.  If you were to drive by my house in Louisville, you would be convinced. (Right now I call it Miss Havisham's house.  We are going to be selling it next year and before that happens, I definitely have to develop some curb appeal.)

But when I moved to Lake Medora, I gained a house with established gardens.  I have one sun garden at the side of the house.  This one (pictured) has lots of flowers that bloom through the spring and summer.  I also have two shade gardens in the front of the house.  The first summer I was here, my main goal was not to kill the gardens.  I was very conservative.  I wasn't even sure what was a weed and what was a flower.  I didn't know about mulch.

The garden stayed alive the first and the second summer.  The third summer came after an unusually hard winter, when the ground had frozen and thawed several times.  Many plants had been thrust out of the soil.  I tried to replant them (with limited success) but then realized I could replace fairly cheaply, which I did.  The act of actually planting something opened my eyes to the possibility that I could do more than just keep someone else's garden alive.  So I have been cautiously planting perennials.  This year almost all of them have come back.  (Yay me!)

Michigan has late cool springs, so the garden is just starting to flower. Yesterday and today, I cleaned out the sun garden, turned over and fed the soil, and applied some new mulch.  Tomorrow I tackle one of my shade gardens.  

After that, my job will be to keep things going.  This includes trying to keep the deer from eating my hostas; doing judicious weeding; planting some new perennials.  I also have beautiful wildflowers on the part of the yard that leads directly down to the lake. It's actually my favorite garden of all, because I only have to admire what comes up.

#LakeMedora

#garden