How long have you been working on your gardens?

I read all your knowledgable posts and see your beautiful pictures and I feel so inadequate. I just started with mine last year and mine pale in comparison. So, how long have you all been doing this to make your gardens so beautiful?

I'm looking for a reason to not give up since we had a late spring, late frosts and snow, then drought, and now we are getting monsoon rains that are washing everything away, including the seeds I planted! Maybe it's the climate I live in, but this was not my choice, I was born here! LOL

Oh don't give up! they get better every year! I have only lived here for about 4 years and there was nothing here when we bought the place. i still have tons of room but i keep adding new beds every year. My first year they were sad to look at only annuals. now i have lots of things that come back every year bigger and better! Give it time it is deffinatly worth it :)

Joan, don't give up yet... please.

I just redid my backyard last year. It was totally taken out to the bare dirt. I started putting little things in, like perennials and bulbs... and then when this past spring came, I planted some seeds and also bought a few annuals to fill the empty spaces for awhile. I just took some pics of my backyard (like the Dahlias I posted) and now they are missing from my computer altogether...don't know what happened so I can't show you what it has done in one years time.
Just remember this, as it is truly a true statement: Your garden sleeps the first year, creeps the second year and then LEAPS the 3rd year.
Keep your chin up, as you have a lovely area to garden with and with the new house in the works, we will be commenting on your house and gardens...next year.

Donna

Joan

Gardens are never finished! I've never met one gardener who has sat back and said 'That's it now, all I need do is weed and prune it for the rest of the time I'm here'.

This particular garden was an utter wreak when we took over 7 years ago. Sleeping Beauty's castle had less briars! They had left the house in darkness, covered the entire 70x35ft up to a height of 10-15ft for quite some years. Everything needed to start from scratch and it's only this year that it is beginning to come together. We still have a long way to go before we can even take a short break from it. Only last week we took a small, very difficult bed and changed it around because the last 4 ideas didn't work well enough. We had one garden when I was a child that, when you dug the soil, was full of car parts and motorbikes someone had buried LOL.

It is a lot of work but gardens are a labour of love. The house may have your personality imprinted in the walls but the garden is a mirror to your soul.

Relax and enjoy! :)

Joan, what everyone so far has said is true. When we bought this place 8 years ago, the gardens had been neglected totally for decades. We had rented the farm for 20 years and I had tried to get the lady who owned it to let me help her, but she didn't want anybody's help, and so from my yard carved out of a pasture, I watched it go sadly to jungle. When I started making my own gardens, there was more tearing out to do than planting. And then the two big pine trees at the east end of the house fell over and what was supposed to be a shade garden became a garden with morning and afternoon shade and mid day sun and, oh my, I'm still finding plants that I didn't know I had in the jungles that I just haven't been able to clear out yet! This spring, I found a patch of ancient muscari! I was terribly lucky in that generations of gardeners had lived here and I have a lot of heirloom plants just because they were abandoned, so to speak.

Gardening will teach you patience, perserverance and a lovely kind of pride that is very unselfish in that you know you were only the catalyst - it is in the end the garden that takes over and becomes.

my big garden is 5yrs!!

http://davesgarden.com/showthread/230011.html
It has taken 4 years to get to this shape from that to this
http://davesgarden.com/showthread/77436.html
I moved in here to my G-g-father's property 4 yrs ago and the old tenant who lived there for 47 years did nothing just because it wasn't their own. I had to start from scratch. If I have done landscaping, it is not without 'landscraping'! I do all the garden work myself, much to the chagrin of my DW. DG has changed the way I look at gardening since I bumped into it almost a year ago. It will take time and effort. Patience is an absolute necessity! Don't give up JJ.

we started about 5 yrs ago with the ponds. we worked hard 2 years, not knowing what we were doing. Then 2 summers I had to pretty much stay inside, health problems.
It will never be finished, there's always a bed to be redone, shade turns to sun or whatever. But I enjoy it now in case I can't later.
Joan I have a few things on your wish list if you want them for postage, it's very hard to wait on seeds to fill in things.

Thank you for all your replies. I feel better now. I had about come to the conclusion that I just couldn't do this. No matter how much I work on things, nothing seems to change. But I see now that it's going to take many years to get things looking good. I started with a totally bare 5 acre piece of land, and it still looks very bare. We've planted about 100 trees, and I am hoping that when they get a little growth on them, things will start to take shape.

tiG, thank you for your offer! I'll email you.

Joan

That is a massive project! I would take my hat off to you were I wearing one right now. 5 acres will take a long time, are you doing it piece by piece or braving the whole lot in one go?

Right now we are working on the whole thing. Once we get some trees that have a few years growth on them we will be able to start working on it in sections. We are trying to have a master plan so the whole yard works together and doesn't look choppy. I have built three flower beds so far. One is an three tiered annual bed with a frog sprinkler in the middle of the top tier, it's an octagon shape. The other one is going to be a flower garden, with smaller beds within a large garden. That one I started last year and it will take awhile before it's done. The newest one I'm working on is a circular one. That one is a memorial bed for our dog, as this was where her dog run was and we filled it in with topsoil and are planting it.

From this point, I don't know where I'll go. Maybe by the time I get these gardens finished and filled, and some planting done around the house next spring, the trees will have a little growth so I can start tieing the whole yard together.

Joan, I moved into my newly built house 6 yrs ago, and it was bare. when you look at it now, you would have no idea that these gardens did not exist. I started with 3 gallon containers of black eyed susans, and now, I have them all over my front yard as well as back yard. I started out with 3 or 4 butterfly bushes, and now i have them lining my back fence, my side fence and the side of my house. I planted a couple crabapple trees that i didnt care for, dug them up and gave them to a neighbour. Some things work some don't. Dont be afraid to yank things out if they dont work for you, or the look you are trying to achieve.
I had a couple of azaleas, and they are nice looking for about a week a year, I finally had enough of them and yanked them out, I have a rhodie that has gotten pretty big, but again, it blooms for about a week then is pretty icky looking. I'm ready to yank that out...wish someone living close to me wanted it.
one year I spent a fortune on seeds, and practically nothing came from it....next year I bought plants, foxgloves, red hot pokers, black eyed susans. I couldnt start the seeds for the life of me, now they naturalize....I have foxgloves all over the place, in between pavers, cracks etc., same with butterfly bushes.

I have one weeping cherry that is gorgeous about 1 week out of the year, and if there is a gust of wind it blows the flowers off. I do get about a dozen saplings out of this tree every year, and have sent some to people in trades, and given them to neighbours.
I get a lot of maple, birch and fir volunters, I try to grow these to about a foot then give them away.
I have a couple of birches and cherries that I am nursing
and one red maple under the magnolia tree, and an oak under that silly rhodie.
I have found that some things that look good in pictures, don't necessarily do well im my climate, no matter how hard I try, and some things are prone to rust and powderry mildew, no whatter what precautions I take, so I know better, and dont grow hollyhocks.
I planted 5 or 6 roses when I first moved in, and realized that I am just not a rose person, the black spot would drive me mad. So I yanked those out and gave them to friends, then about a year ago, I fell in love with a rose and forgot my resulotion not to grow roses, brought it home, and sure enough, black spot....
And I am constantly moving things around...

When I learned about trading, I got a lot of things that arent necessarily grown in this area and again learned what things work and what things don't. for example, that loveley chameleon ground cover...very very invasive.....looks pretty when you first see it, with red, cream and green leaves......but it does spread.....

enough from me......

If there are things you are looking for Joan that I might have, please let me know.

at least 30 years...don't see any end in sight yet

Ten years. I started out with a briar patch that used to be a meadow. We have red clay soil that you can't stick a pitch fork into in July, but now I can dig with a hand trowel about a foot deep.I'm still not finished, thought I wouldn't plant so much this year, but I'm still planting. I plant things, don't like them, yank them out. I used to try to save fussy plants, but not anymore. Even my Tropicals, if they are too difficult, I give them to someone that has more knowledge.

I have had my place for 13 years now. Ive gotten more serious the past 3. Since Ive become a master gardener the addiction has become much worse...
my garden is never done. I always think of more gardens, and dream of different types of plants to try. So, dont give up. Gardening is just as Baa said....gardens are never finished...just ask our families! LOL.

Joan, don't give up! For every plant that doesn't survive, you will get 10 new ones that will thrive! All of us have been "gardeners" since we saw our first flower, whether we were able to build a garden at the time or not. I started about 8 years ago, "helping" in my parents' garden. I have gradually assumed more and more of the work...play. The more I grow, the more I learn, and the more I change what I like and want to grow. Will our gardens ever be finished? Nope! Not while they are so much fun to design and re-design and re-design...

Kathy

Joan - I started about 10 years ago with a veggie garden and a strip about 3 feet wide x ten feet long for flowers. I put the flower bed in the back of the house just in case I failed - cause I didn't want the neighbors to be horrified.

I think we all get discouraged sometimes. I know that I do. Every year it seems I bite off more than I can chew - but I keep plugging away at it. I'm not sure why ... my back aches, my knees hurt, and my house is an absolute disaster. But if I have a free day I'm out there from morning until dinner time. Maybe you just have more than you can handle right now - with the new house and all. Just do what you can - the rest will come sooner or later.

poppysue...u didnt have to tell her about the house being messy did you? LOL. I have been out as much as possible too. My house is suffering badly because of it. There is always more to do. It is an addiction. However I know I have a problem ...just dont want to quit...lol. As soon as I get my tax return Im going PLANT SHOPPING.

Joan, in the past six months I've read two books that really helped encourage me: Sydney Eddison's (sp?) "The Self-Taught Gardener" and Olive Pinkton's "My Garden and I"

Both of these are essentially stories of how these two (very different) women approached gardening, and chronicles their many years of trials and triumphs. I learned a lot of helpful tips from reading them, as well as gained more perspective - it really does take time for a garden to emerge in your mind's eye and in reality.

Which is probably a good thing, because I know I usually change my mind several times between that initial idea and groundbreaking :)

This is my second gardening season here. When we moved in, there were mature trees, two ponds, and shrubs - and nothing else. A mixed blessing - I've been able to choose all the perennials I want to use, but it also meant starting those from scratch. And the shrubs in the front landscape were old, scraggly and beyond redemption.

Before we moved here, I gardened semi-seriously for about 5 years, then for the next ten years, I dabbled when time and energy permitted.

And to echo what others have said - five acres is a LOT to tackle - my hat is off to you! We're on 1.25 which is aplenty for me. I think your idea of getting in the trees first is very wise, even if it requires the utmost in patience ;)

Thanks for all the encouragement you guys. Tonight I feel a little better about things. We have had so much rain that our house building got put on hold for a couple days. The grass is dry enough to cut though, and the weeds pull really easy. So, tonight, Dave, Jaden and I worked outside for about 4 hours and got lots of things done. I think my seeds washed away though, 'cuz there's nothing coming up where I planted them except weeds. Oh well, next year I'll just get plants I think. They are easier to start I think.

I'm tired tonight, but feel so much happier about the yard and gardens now that we've gotten a good start at getting them shaped up again. I think I just got behind and was discouraged that the things I planted aren't coming up.

Joan, when my husband, Dennis & I moved into our log house, there was no yard. In fact, junk trucks lined the driveway, and all manor of junk lay all over. Our view from the diningroom window was scrub alder, after we moved out an old travel trailer! That was back in 1992. In ten years, we've done a lot. Dennis worked on the lawn... no small feat when your yard is gravel!

Fortunately, we had several loads of top soil to work with, but I couldn't count the number of wheelbarrow loads we've sifted and hauled around. I combed the dump for old cement blocks and concrete to make my beds. I tipped over old bookcases for raised beds. We trimmed trees, cut underbrush, and cut out devil's club with a pickaxe.

Sometimes, I wondered why I worked so hard... it was never going to look much better. But now, ten years later, people walk my yard and exclaim at it's beauty. It isn't a finished product by any stretch of the imagination, but the mixture of wild ferns, domestic plants, rock gardens, etc. all make it interesting.

I have to admit my house is a disaster all summer, since I spend most of my day outdoors. By the time I come in all dirty and happy, all I want is a hot bath. But, I couldn't be happier. Growing things is my zen in life. I'm sure when a few more years pass, you'll have a place that puts mine to shame!

Joan, when we moved here 5 yrs ago, there was nothing but weeds holding hands.........lot's of work, but very gratifying. Took a year of annuals, and learning what not to put where......but it is beginning to evolve into what I had envisioned. Lots of work to be done everyday. Since there is no getting out in the afternoons, that requires 4 full hours of work in the mornings. Heck the house cleans just as easly after the noon hour!! Only takes a hour tops a day........I don't count laundry, and that is just pitch in a load, remove a load, and repeat!

"eyes"

Joan. Wanna hear me?I started with fenc #1,2,3,. Now I am up to 5. I have my "drop dead" garden n the front. Thats all my Spring flowers bulbs. I call it that incase I do drop dead. It will still come up . lol. Then. I have the front of the house. where I just last Fall tore half that out and replaced all that with hydrangea. Then. I have my first baby Englush garden. Its hollyhocks, and delphs and my new Clematis for fun. Then. I redid my fence#2 . Gave my roses to the lady across teh street. I can still enjoy them. but. I now have hibisus ther . Fun fun. Then. Lets see. #3. Moved the iris too last year and put in 4 huge hollyhocks. Then. going into the back yard is my Phoenix garden. It was Dh veggie patch. Then. after the neighbor brats burnt down my 1913 carriage house/garage, I got a new garden. Then that brings me to my pond that I did 3 years ago on my vacation. I have a love, hate relationship with that. Then. that brings me to the new fence that runs the rest of the way back up the back yard that has hydrangea sn all sorts of things planted there that I sitll have to get rid of the sod around. PHEW!!!! Its alot of work. And my ground needs help. One Day at a Time. I have been at my house since 1984. Things are always changing and growing. I wish I had more land.

Joan, I gardened off and on for about 20yrs. as I worked full time. Retired 10yrs. ago and one of my most favorite things is gardening. We have a little over an acre and DH and I put in our largest bed first. I put flowers in front and He put a couple of rows of corn and other things in. Then He saw that I kept adding flowers and He moved his plants out of the flower beds. Every year I am taking out or moving something or putting in a new plant. I think we gardenders think that there is something that needs to be changed etc. Take your time and it will all fall into place. Gardening is a great therapy for me. This year I have come to realize that there are certain plants that just don't work in my yard for certain reasons. I have taken out some things. Some things like real good soil and I found out the last couple of years that the plant Beebalm likes poor soil, or rather it only does well for me that way. Reading all the things here on Dave's has helped me a lot.I believe it was go vols that recommed a couple of books to read. I think I will go the libary and check them out. I know your Garden will be beautiful. Keep at it. IT IS GOOD FOR YOU!!!!!!

You all have been good therapy for me. I've thought about this and decided that I have two things working against me and overwhelming me. One is that I am working with such a large bare area. The other is that I watch too many garden shows on HGTV and I want gardens like those, NOW! LOL! I'm not a real patient person I don't think. When I was talking about building the deck about 10 years ago, DH asked me how soon I wanted it. I said yesterday!

I dream of the day I can walk outside and see something beautiful, rather than prairie grass and weeds, and it doesn't seem to be happening yet, but with 5 acres, it will take a long time. I've come to that conclusion now and I know that I just need to persevere. Every year it will get a little bit better, and by the time I die and the kids sell the place, I'll have it just like I want it, and will haunt the next person who moves here and tries to screw up all my hard work! LOL

Okay, I've got my spunk back I think. Thanks everyone for helping me out of my discouragement.

Just remember anything worth having is worth working for. Patience! I started with an acre of nothing but grass 18 years ago and it stayed that way while my children were still in their early teens. Then the hottub purchase came in 1992 or so and I just wanted a 4' walkway around the tub. Well that walkway turned into a large deck so I just wanted a little 3' to 4' patch of phlox out from it. DH said "I thought you wanted a flower garden", so I just started digging for about 50 feet. That was widened and expanded for the next 2 years. Then came the shade bed under the trees and the veggie garden and the few flowers around the veggie gardens turned into huge gardens then we toted more stone from the mountains and the rock garden surfaced and it just keeps growing and going, and going. I just finished digging what was a small bed under the dogwoods into an entire l-shaped bed out in the right quarter, so "DON"T QUIT", you'll start one and just keep getting more and more ideas as things begin to mature and become more beautiful!!!

JoanJ: Just remember, a weed is defined as any plant that grows where you don't want it. Maybe there is room in your kingdom for the prairy, and you can tame the rest. I began close to the house, and I've worked my way out, but there is a perimeter to my property that will remain wild. It defines my yard, and it affords some wildness border that separates me from the rest of the world.

Perhaps a small "soul patch," as my friend calls it. Meaning, a small special garden, just for you, that you can go to when all the rest seems overwhelming. Not big or extravagant, but something that is lovely, smells good, has a few birds flying in and out to feed and bathe, and is completely FINISHED (or as much so as any garden is). Just a 10X10 semi-enclosed area. That way, you don't have to see the rest unless you want to. But Prairie land is a thing of beauty in and of itself. When the soul patch is comforting and nice to be in, you are much more likely to spread your wings to the other portions of your land, so it, too, feels good. Don't strive for perfection. Our version of it does not exist in nature, only on HGTV. They only shoot the best parts, and not the sweaty workers and piles of weeds and diseased garden rejects. I've gardened in rental units, old neglected farmland, containers on a porch and in dead stoney soil. Now, after four years in this one spot, I realize it will never, ever be finished. When I am done here, I will move on and let someone else take over and build from where I left off. For now, just try to find some peace and satisfaction in the land you have and know that like most everyone here has already said, it will never really be "done."

Yes, then enclosed gardens can be very comforting. I guess that's what I meant about starting close to the house and working out until you feel it is enough. The seed catalogs have many varieties of wildflowers that can be added for color. Of course, I really don't have any idea what Joan is dealing with. I just know that I have cleared certain areas, then was unable to keep up the maintenance, and within a year or two, you'd never know I'd been there. It's a big decision how to go about this sort of thing, and I guess I'd have to be standing where Joan is to know how to start and where to stop.

Penny, your post set a light bulb in my mind aglow! I'm trying to look at and work on the whole big picture at once. And you are right about HGTV, they only show the good parts. They don't show the two solid weeks of preparation to get the gardens to the point of filming either, much less the years and years that went into growing them. I think you are right, I need to finish my flower garden so I have a place to sit and look over the rest and all will come into place. If I can get that one done this year, and tend to the other gardens I've started, then next year I will have a place to sit and look over the rest of it and put it all in perspective, one day at a time. GREAT IDEA!

Haighr, I am practicing patience, but it's not my best quality. LOL! I'm getting better though, and I won't quit. In a few years you will see pictures of the change in this place.

Weeze, I am leaving room for the prairie, as there's tons of it outside my little boundry. We are prairie as far as you can see here. There's a saying here that you can stand on a pop can and see what your neighbor is doing a half mile away. I am trying to build a little privacy around our place where we can work outside and not see the neighbor driving on the section line 1/2 mile away, and he can't see us either. We are actually trying to close in our boundry a bit by planting trees all around for wildlife. Such a long process! I just wish I would have started it years ago when I moved up here. I would be that much farther advanced, and the trees would be bigger.

Yes, trees take a long time. I've reached the age where I won't wait for twenty years for shade... I could be sleeping underground where it's really shady by then! We're fortunate to have lots of mountains, embankments, trees, and undergrowth around here. I have neighbors that look like a junk yard, so the tall growth comes in handy. Our local wild growth is alder or elderberry bushes. Both get tall enough to screen within a few years. They are even attractive when pruned and maintained. Do you have any local fast growing shrubs or trees that your could use as a hedge?

Joan,
'Weezin had a great point there---using native plants and trees. Call (or email) your local County Extention Agent, they always have lots of free info re: native plants,
trees, etc.
BTW, I've had a great time reading this thread,
everyone here has such terrific ideas and suggestions.
I love this place! ;-)
My gardens are 8-10 years old.
I started with the bed that winds around the house
10 yrs. ago, added a separate rose garden the next year,
and my: "Looks-good-from-a-distance" flower bed
about 8 years ago.
It does take time for things to get going,
but someone in an earlier post said that the first year
plants sleep, the second year they creep,
and the third year they leap---they're right! :-)
You'll get there.
Let me know if I can send you any plants
for your garden.
Melissa
P.S. How's that Chocolate mint doing? :-)

Carol, I'm not sure what types of shrubs we can grow around here. I really don't have any yet, but I'll check into that. We have lilacs, but they are not fast growing. I do love them though. Next year I want to get some different kinds to grow around the house. I love that smell. The fast growing trees I've planted are willows and poplars. Tehey are also short lived though too, so I also planted some that are slower growing but longer lived. I'm hoping that by the time the short lived ones start dying, the others will be big.

Hi Melissa! I have to get to the town where the extension agency is next week for a meeting, and if I have time I'm going to stop over there and chat with him. If that saying about plants is right, next year the ones I planted last year should start to look good! I hope so. That would really help keep me motivated. The chocolate mint is doing great. I haven't even eaten any of it's leaves yet. I'm being good with this one, since I killed the seedling I got last year by eating too many of it's little leaves. LOL! They were just so good! Thanks for the offer of plants. If you ever need to thin something out, I would love to send postage for a start. Thanks.