Creating a Garden from Scratch

You know you want to. You can see it out in the yard or around the house. You’ve been looking into other yards and getting ideas. You go into garden nurseries and try to remember the flowers, shrubs, and trees you see that you want. You research them to see if it works in your yard with the zone, sun, or shade. Then you buy the tools and you just go for it.

From Nothing to Something

It’s a blank canvas, its grass, its tough, and you have a shovel. You are ready. From here there’s a few steps you can start with and depending on what you want to do.

1st choice, Dig or not to Dig?

You can make a shape of the garden with a hose, lawn paint, or string. From there you take a spade or half moon edger and outline the shape. You are creating an edge. Edging to a bed is essential to differentiate the garden bed from the yard. It prevents grass from creeping into the garden bed and makes it visible to prevent mowing over. The cut edgings you take out from the bed and you are left with the center full of turf. From here you got two choices: scrape out turf or use cardboard or newspaper to cover and suppress the grass.

Scraping out turf: Use the spade and cut under an inch from the turf and just shovel out tufts of it. Keep doing it till the whole shape is free from grass.

Newspaper?: Otherwise known as layering gardening. You put down newspaper or cardboard, you wet it down with water, and then you put your compost/mulch on top of it. Wait a couple days for it soften up so you can plant. Easier than digging and sustainable.

Plants

The right plant for the right place, right? What does that mean exactly? How do you deduct that and where do you start?

Look at the area the garden is in. Is always sunny? Or is it in the shade? It can be both! That’s a good place to start. Cause many gardens fail with the sunny plant planted in the deep shade.

Perennial or Annual?

Perennial is a plant that completes its life cycle every year and lies dormant to begin again the next season. An annual is a plant that completes its life cycle in a season and dies back with no reserves to come back the following season. Perennials are successful in zones they are acclimated to and some perennials in warmer zones are annuals here in the northeast.

Plant Hardiness Zones is a guide to a plants dependability in a given area, zones from 1-15. Here in Massachusetts we have zone 4-7. 4 in the upper northern hills of western Mass and zone 7 on the eastern beach coast.

Mulch

There are a variety of mulches to top dress the garden. Mulch is good for suppressing weeds, providing water retention, and keeping roots cool. Here in the northeast, we typically use shaved wood mulch, some with natural coloring and others dyed like the infamous hot dog red mulch and black mulch. At Mountain Home Landscape I like to make a mix of our natural mulch and compost to provide the benefits of mulch and the nutrients needed for the soil.

Design

Design? What, where, and how? Sometimes it can be what you want to go for, are you going for a pollinator garden? If so, get pollinator friendly perennials like Monarda, Echinacea, Nepeta, Rudbeckia, and Lavender to start. If you want a cottage feel, get plants that can easily colonize the bed and get several of the same kind. Shasta Daisies, Rudbecki, and hardy Mums do a great job with that. Also, Tall stuff towards the back for an edging bed, medium height in the middle, and low towards the front. With island beds tall in the middle, medium height around it, and the low towards the front on the edge.

Results!

Now that the garden is in place, water thrice a week from its initial planting to November. Then the following season twice to once a week will work. Enjoy, maintain it by weeding it, fertilizing it, and mulching when needed. Sometimes plants don’t take and that’s ok. Gardening is a great big experiment and it may take a couple tries to get the look you want. Even us professionals don’t have success with every plant in a garden. Some plants just fail due to how it was grown, pest, and diseases, and you just try again.

Happy Gardening!!!!