Well hello there! Kate here, please enjoy seeing the progress I have made transforming our front/side lawn into a garden over the course of a year. I have no formal training, just by watching Mom in the garden growing up and now gardening books and good ol’ Youtube. I live in a Garden zone 5b, right in the heart of Portland, Maine. Cheers!
I had originally planned to work on creating a garden in our side lawn over the course of a few years, however this past year and a half had expedited the process for me since we were all staying at home more. The Spring of 2020 I started out small and installed two raised beds on the side of our house where we receive the most amount of sun. I had found some simple, raised 4×4 raised Cedar, garden beds from Home Depot that I could easily put together. They took me no longer than 15 minutes each and I only needed a mallet (or yes I even used a rock) to pound the sides together to complete. I’m sure however it would be cheaper if you have the tools and resources to make your own raised beds. But I tend to be impatient and it was something I could complete rather quickly. Especially with working full time, longer projects would have to be spread out over a length of time to complete.
A few months later I had received a garden arbor for my birthday and decided I really wanted a nice looking landing pad for it. So off to Home Depot we went to find some “natural” looking stone that also wouldn’t break the bank. It certainly helps to break up gardening projects into chunks we found over the course of this past year. This helps us with being able to save and budget, as well as recover! My husband and I both work full-time, so really we could only accomplish one big project a year really. I think I may show in a separate post a step-by-step how we actually made the stone patio.
We certainly received a lot of strange looks as our neighbors walked by our house…. with our arbor leading to nowhere. This didn’t deter me however, I was motivated more than ever to work on the garden.
At this point I have a rough plan in my head of what I want to do. I tend to draw my inspiration from English and Cottage gardens. However, our space is fairly limited in terms of how much I can do but I am up for the challenge.
I decided the Fall of 2020 to also dig up a garden bed in the back in front of the fence, and plant 200 while tulips I had ordered from Colorblends. (Not sponsored-I wish though! 😀 )
At this point I had done as much as I could prior to Fall and Winter arriving. I was also eager to see what my first attempt at gardening would look like come Spring. Would I really have a show of 200 white tulips? Did I do it right? I keep going though, and am happy to learn from my mistakes. I found there are many life lessons to be learned from gardening.
Fast forward to Spring of 2021, I had the show I was dreaming of all Winter! It inspired me to keep going, and you’ll see just how much we were able to accomplish this year!
I had started a new job earlier this past Spring and was able to dedicate one full week to this project. So I began digging up the sod, planting some Boxwoods, climbing roses, clematis and more! This was an intense week of digging, I think I felt every muscle in my body after that.
With the help of my husband, we were also able to finish the project and top it off with some quarter inch crushed stone which we sourced from R.J. Grondin & Sons, a local quarry to us. This helped to keep costs down, as opposed to buying bags of crushed stone or pea gravel from a local hardware store.
I then added in a few more beds in the front to help anchor the arbor, along with planting two Incrediball Hydrangea’s and some stepping stones leading you towards the garden.
I also ended up setting lights up in the garden to help illuminate the space at night. I am excited to utilize this space more next year when the warmer weather hits! I foresee a many cups of coffee out here. 🙂
I feel extremely lucky to be able to have this garden space to work on, and am excited to watch it grow. What started out as a good lock-down project, turned into a full fledged passion. You’ll notice the back half of the garden is still grass…. but that’s our project fo next Spring and you’ll have to stay tuned! It will be a doozy, but I think will really help to define the space even more. I really hope you will enjoy the progress as much as I will.
Kindly,
Kate
