Landscape developing and four months growth

I took a look at my diary of garden photos to see the plant progress that I documented with photographs. It really impressed me. My disappointment trumped reality. I thought my garden was only minimally successful, but to my delight I could see that it  was wildly successful, maybe not as beautiful as I dreamed but pretty darn wonderful.  I will share some comparison photos with you.

I started an herb garden this year, with the help of Mr, who was pretty darn wonderful about it. We started with a very ugly, old, ignored little plot next to our kitchen door. This old house, 150 years strong or decrepit, depending how you look at it, was and is an ugly duckling. Ugly because it had not been lovingly cultivated for way too long. Plantings that are cared for add so much to a living environment and the visual appeal of that environment. So in that vein, we took on planting the herb garden to aid our cooking in addition to our visuals. In the beginning there was sand, ants, sand and more ants, ocassionally peppered with pine shats and heavily laden with oyster shells. It really sounds like your everyday growing environ doesn't it? It looked pretty messy, sad and ignored. I just could not stand the pain of looking at it anymore. I am way to wrapped up in my living area to let that be. Here is what we started with.

The Beginning: sand, oyster shells, pine shats, and more sand..bricks placed to stop sand from entering house

Making Structure
The idea in creating a landscape is to create rooms to enjoy. One cannot take in all of the outdoors at once. It is far more enjoyable to have small units of livable space within the large overwhelming and awesome whole. In that pursuit I organized an entry area that creates good house access for entering and exiting the house, carrying in groceries, and greeting back door guests. An herb garden was our choice because of its usefulness and the fact that for the last thirty years I wanted an herb garden to accompany my cooking. Hence the combination of useful garden, neat landscape and pretty entrance.

First I analyzed the area, its plusses and minues, its light, and its geological terrain. It has a natural slant so that had to be addressed. I chose to create a terraced effect to control runoff and create planting areas.  We did this with brick and pressure treated lumber because we already had those materials and cost is a huge consideration for us since we have little income. I think it worked well. Our big expenses were mulch, which was the most important element here, because it improved the soil; and a sprinkler system from Lowes and Walmart, which keeps all moist by misting three times a day.  Here are some photos to show you the development over the last four months. 

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Mulch added, brick path lengthened and used for retaining

Structure developing, planting areas from brick and wood placement

first plantings

Brick and plantings are starting to define the area using existing shrubs and brick found on property

mid summer-sprinklers added after struggling with watering by hand

Garden filled in nicely after adding water systems that made our life easier!

Here's how it looks this week after four months of growth and lots of tending. I am pleased with our results.

Looking at the photos I can see so much change. I'll start by pointing out the Morning Glories on the trellis at the top righ of the last photo. Compare the last two photos and the growth rate is amazing. I don't think these two photos are any more than a month apart. That plant has probably tripled in size in that time.  The lavenders, in the bottom of most photos, so love the sand soil and wind here that they just fill out and get taller as you watch them! The growing plants hide the hose for the watering system, which is what I hoped for.   I am sorry we did not install them earlier in the season, we would likely have plants twice the size they are now. This garden has midling sun, meaning that I wasn't sure anything was going to grow here at all. It is shaded by a huge white Pine tree and an Ash tree, which are in turn surrounded by Crape Myrtles. The shade over her is most of the day, but I guess it is not as dense as I feared and everything survived. The eastern morning sun comes through, but I was not sure what angle of exposure it had and if it was going to be enough for survival. It seems it was....now I just have to worry about the winter winds destroying the plants. I get that answer next spring, I guess.

My Morning Glories were a disappointment even though they became very tall and full. They did not have a lot of bloom, and I did not get to enjoy the few I had because I am not a morning glory. This week there were finally enough flowers to make a showing, but it is all over by nine oclock am. I noticed today that as soon as the sun starts coming to them they shrivel up like the feet of the the Wicked Witch of the West.  Very disappointing to say the least. Their flowers just never justified their space in the garden.I'll show you... 

Morning Glories planted from seeds,

growth after a month to six weeks

growth after three months

growth after four months, these must be 8-9 feet tall

They did have some pretty flowers, but not very showy, sparse and far between. They are filling out now, maybe they will redeem themselves by the first frost.

These last pictures really show some impressive growth. To put some color over near the herb garden I dragged out an old pot I had, and put it on a hanger. Knowing it was a shady area I planted some shade flowers in it, Impatience and Torenia. They did give some good color and the different structures of the two plants complemented each other well. The Torenia is upright and stiff without much give or softness, but it does have some nice color and contributes nicely when making a combined pot. Alone it is pretty boring. The Impatience has good color when cared for, and it fills out beautifully without any help, but it can be boring if not set off by another color or plant shape. Just by accident, I will not claim planning, I put these two together in the pot to make color in the shady area. They are spectacular together. At first I had my doubts but now I see I will likely repeat the combo. Not visible in the photo is a third color in the pot, a peachy Impatience which changes the color scheme to the better.

On the left is within a week or two of planting. On the right is full on growth in the middle of summer. Damned impressive, but I must add that Mr installed a drip hose into this pot and it made all the difference in the world, as to how it filled out and matured.