3 Years Later

Wow… it’s hard to believe my last post was almost 3 years ago, and we’ve been at this house now for 5 years. Each year has presented a new set of issues or concerns with regards to my gardening areas, and then I took on the added responsibility of selling seeds in my Etsy store. Counting out hundreds of seeds, packaging & labeling, and then shipping them. It was rather time-consuming. In hindsight, I should have tended to my gardening areas first. Many people in my life tell me what a beautiful garden I have, but, as we know, we are our own worst enemy, so I see nothing but the bare spaces, plants that aren’t thriving, all the weeds that persist. It still needs a lot of work.

This summer, this completely overwhelming feeling pushed me to take a step back and do much less than I normally would. I also made the decision to stop thinking about The Southern Gardener from a business point-of-view and shift it back to a hobby. Because, honestly, these past two years have felt more like it’s a chore that I have to do rather than something I enjoy doing. The down time has helped. I still have plenty of plants that were already planted and growing before selling hundreds of seedlings super cheap during a plant sale I had.

Here are some pictures to show the current state of my garden beds here in mid-August.

The pollinator garden:

Thankfully I have a lot of perennials in the pollinator garden since I didn’t plant many annuals for this season. And it helps that the salvia reseeded itself everywhere, along with some vinca, celosia, and wishbone flowers. They have filled in some of the bare spots so it’s not looked too empty.

The perennial garden:

The perennial garden is pretty lackluster right now due to my poor planning. The only plants currently blooming are the pink Knockout roses, a Rudbeckia triloba, and the two ‘American Gold Rush’ rudbeckias. I have already planned out some changes for this bed next year so there will be all-summer color.

The Oak Garden:

This area looks much better than it did last year, which doesn’t seem to be saying much considering all the weeds still trying to take over. This area mainly consists of my peonies and rose bushes, along with a few planters – and TONS of viney weeds (everything from wild blackberry, trumpet vine, poison ivy, passionflower vine, and other things I can’t remember off the top of my head). The weed fabric is a necessity here to keep the passionflower vine from taking over completely.

The greenhouse area:

The weeds…. And at this time of year, there shouldn’t be anything remaining on my greenhouse tables. I do have plans for a good portion of this stuff now, so it’s a matter of waiting until it’s cool enough to plant.

The Tiered Garden:

The tiered garden is the barest of my areas as I didn’t get to plant my annuals out due to things in life constantly happening. The top left tier was supposed to be all dahlias, but only 4 of the 12 made it (and 2 were relocated before they got too big). The weed fabric is temporary in this area. Shout-out to the volunteer salvia on the right and the volunteer celosia that came up in the walkway. 😂

The Lower Garden:

This one might get renamed to Cutting Garden, but then I would have to make sure to plant stuff for cut flowers only. This whole area was supposed to be the dahlia garden this year, but it’s been a rough year for dahlias. As of mid-August, some of the tuber varieties are finally starting to bloom. There were originally supposed to be 43 tuber varieties in this area and 28 seedlings started from seeds I collected from my dahlias last season. The seedlings have done really well. There are only 34 tuber varieties left, and a few are hanging on to a glimmer of hope for survival. This area will be a lot different next year because I am tired of staring at a lot of plain green. Next year, I am limiting myself to 16 dahlias in this area: 10 in the back 4×8 bed and 6 in the back right 2×8 bed (including any seedlings I grow). The rest will be filled with colorful flowers that will bloom all summer.

The back patio:

Most of this area was covered with black plastic and pine straw for summer of 2023 to kill of some of the weeds. They were out of control. I put down the weed fabric with holes on the right at the beginning of spring and planted out creeping phlox cuttings I had propagated. The goal was to turn this whole area to the left and right of the walkway into a mat of creeping phlox. It’s evergreen here in Alabama, and it would stop the 2 indoor/outdoor cats from using it as a litter box when they went out. I planted the Cora Cascade vinca in between the phlox to fill in the bare areas. I didn’t get it all done before quitting this season though. The weeds and grass were not phased by a whole season of darkness. I finally took the piece of fabric up on the right lower section (next to the cat) because it wasn’t doing anything to keep the weeds at bay. I hate spraying weed killer and do it as a last resort, but I had to spray this area last week. These grass clumps will not come up, whatever they are.

There are other areas in the yard that are in the process of being converted into planting areas, but I’ll show those as I start to work on them. In my down time this summer, I have worked on planning out what to plant where for next year. This was the biggest mistake I made this year. I didn’t know what I was going to plant and where, so I started a tremendous amount of seeds, both for planting and selling. Never again! I already have my specific list of what, where, and how many, and what days to start each. Next year will be MY year!