If you follow @lifeonladyslipperlane on instagram, you may have seen on a story that I shared where I commented that I had big plans for the oval garden in the backyard. Well, my “big plan” was to turn this into a cut flower garden so that I could go out and cut my own bouquets… sounds awesome right?! Well, I tilled the garden up with a hand tiller and scattered my seeds. Unfortunately, the birds decided this was their new favorite snacking space and ate most of my seeds. So, I ended up going with a backup plan to design this garden for the year.
This garden was in place when we moved into the house. It was huge and for the first couple of years, we honestly just mowed it down and let grass fill in because I didn’t know which plants were flowers and which were weeds. We did transplant any obvious decorative plants into other garden areas, but we otherwise completely neglected this garden. Fast forward a couple years, and I decided to reclaim the garden, but didn’t want it quite as large as it had previously been. So, Caleb made a decorative corner fence and we used the existing front edging and ended up using about half of the available space.
I moved a couple of Incrediball Hydrangeas as a larger plant for the back of the garden and knew that I would like to use as many perennials as possible to keep the garden fairly simple and easy to care for. Incrediball Hydrangeas are awesome and produce huge, sturdy “balls” of tiny white flowers. From my experience, the stems are strong enough so that the flowers don’t sag onto the ground. I also love to use the dried flowers for decorating.
After my attempt at a cut flower garden here failed due to birds eating the seeds, I split some of my existing hostas and transplanted into this garden. This was a super inexpensive way to add more perennials to the garden. I also love the way they look!
I had gotten a couple of wood looking planters with mum in them last fall, and decided to use them here for the whole summer! I planted Marigolds with Zinnias in the center. Honestly, I love the Zinnias, but not here. In the future I think that I will fill the whole planter with just Marigolds. I just love the orange, red, and yellow colors of the flowers with the wood.
I had some extra seedlings that I had started, so I added daisies and cosmos to the garden as well. When they bloom, they add a little extra color to the garden since the hydrangeas and hostas are only green and white.
I also added a shepherd’s hook and hanging basket to this garden. I generally like to work with an odd number of plants, but since I only had two hydrangeas, I decided to hang this in the center to balance everything a little bit.
Overall, I am happy with how this looks and it is gorgeous to look at from the deck. I finished off the garden with brown mulch that matches the rest of the landscaping gardens in the back and I think it looks pretty darn good! Big lesson here: everyone sometimes fails at gardening… just try it again or try another variety of plant. Check out my post on 4 tips for landscaping when you lack a green thumb if you need more inspiration! From my experience, a garden will give such a feeling of accomplishment when it does finally grow and look beautiful. Gardening is one of the most rewarding things if you give it a chance. Give it a chance!
Life on Lady Slipper Lane 