Planting a Flower Garden

04/27/2020

Ran across these images from a few years ago, taken while planting the garden in the Spring.  I never shared them in a post. Now seems like a good time, since I am at the same stage of planting!

Our property use to be a dairy farm, which shut down in the 50’s. My gardens sits on the land where the main barn was. We still find bits of china, colored glass, rusty hinges, etc. when digging in the soil! Kind of like a treasure hunt, especially to my daughters. You can see a few bits in one of the pictures.

The gardens are composed of annual and perennial beds.  The annuals last only one year, while the perennials come back each year.  Some annuals shown are sweet peas, which you will see as bright green seedlings all in a row. Some perennials are heuchera or coral bells, the little starts with the colorful leaves I am planting. There are also dahlia tubers going in the ground.  The dahlia were stored in peat moss over the winter and had sprouted.  Because they were in storage, they were very pale looking when I brought them outside. Within a few days in the sunlight, they turned green!

Starting in late January, I begin planting seeds inside my house.  Some plants are slow to germinate and take 12-16 weeks before they are ready to go outside.  You see some of these plants in the greenhouse, waiting to be planted outside.  Other flowers I start directly from seed in the garden, once the danger of frost has past. This usually is mid-April for us. I use soaker hoses to water once in the garden. This was one of the best investments I have made, saving me tons of time and money on my water bills!

The mix of plants is different this year, as we are growing more vegetables along with the flowers. Had to expand into some new beds and move a bunch of plants around to make this happen.  The bones of my garden remain the same, though. Its exhausting work but is all worth it when they start to bloom!