This is a general shot of my gardening area when we first moved here in July 2019.
Tree work was one of the first things we did after moving, and this space got cleared out for my gardening stuff.
Having a blank slate can be intimidating because it’s so hard for me to decide what to do!
In 2020, the lower garden was just a storage space for a lot of the potted plants I’d moved with us, while finishing up the main structure of the tiered garden. I had some leftover landscape timbers from that project, so I used those to get a general idea of the area I was working with for the lower garden.
In 2021, I added what I thought would be the first 2 beds for the front entrance area. They were 4×8 galvanized beds because the price of wood was outrageous at this point due to covid and shortages. Ignore my discarded Christmas tree. 😂 This picture was taken in January.
I decided against the 4×8 beds for the front area, just in case I ever needed to put a fence around this area because of critters. Trying to reach across a 4-foot wide bed to deadhead or harvest veggies from one side only would be hard, so I sold the 4×8 beds and put in temporary cedar picket beds at the beginning of 2021. I already had to boards, so it didn’t cost me anything.
They were temporary because 5 1/2″ isn’t really deep enough for planting something when there is technically no good soil past that point. To build up the lower garden, they had to use clay/chert so that it could be packed and leveled in this area. I knew I would be doing raised beds in this area, so that wasn’t a problem. I planted some leafy greens in March 2021.
Unfortunately, something promptly ate them. Over the years, it seems the only time something really bothers my plants in this area, it is during the winter or early spring. Thankfully nothing seems to venture this way (at least not to eat) in the summer months.
In May 2021, I added the front two beds. They are 2×8 feet and 1 foot deep. Before filing, I installed the first arch trellis. I slid the legs over rebar to make sure it stayed in place and never fell over from winds. So far so good on that front.
I had planted a few veggies in these beds with some marigolds for summer 2021, but the only thing that did that great was the zucchini plant and marigolds. This was mid-August.
March 2022 is when the lower garden was officially complete. I had added all of the raised beds and filled them, ready for the new season. I made my pathways about 3 feet wide so my garden wagon and wheelbarrow would fit.
The 2 beds to the left got flowers (along with 2 David Austin roses – one in each bed). The 2 on the farthest side (in back in the picture below) got dahlias, and the 2 on the right (where the arch is) got veggies planted. The middle 4×8 beds were dahlias also. I used 2×2 pieces of wood to hold my netting in place to support the dahlias, and to attach some shade cloth for the dahlias since growing them in the southeast can be challenging.
At the end of the year, I had added another arch trellis. I also decided to plant a cover crop (mustard) since the garden didn’t really thrive. This is April 2023.
I decided to plant dahlias just in the 4×8 beds for 2023. The front and side 2×8 beds got veggies, and the back 2×8 beds were flowers. I never ate any veggies from the garden last year. Most things did terrible or I didn’t pick what ripened fast enough. And sadly, these 2×2 pieces of wood started rotting, and we had some pretty strong wind storms, so this happened at the end of July.
Thankfully it did not break any of the dahlias, and with my mom’s help, we got it back up, and they bloomed okay. This is Sept 2023.
My garden beds in the lower garden still didn’t thrive during summer 2023. At the beginning of the season, I had purchased soil testing kits through Amazon but never got around to doing them until after the season was over. I wish I had sent in the samples at the beginning of the year because my beds were deficient in several staple nutrients (more on this in a later post).
In November, I did a major plant-out of some fall-sown hardy annual seedlings: snapdragons, dianthus, carnations, stock, bupleurum, and orlaya. I also planted a lot of tulip bulbs and some anemone corms. I added the appropriate fertilizer at the time of planting, and most things did great in spring! The stock did not survive, but I think I waited to late to plant them. A few plants looked rough during the winter, but in the springtime, they flourished! In February of this year, I added clary sage, feverfew, calendula, larkspur, agrostemma, Bachelor’s buttons, Chinese forget-me-nots, clarkia, and Icelandic poppies. The poppies were the only thing that did not do well. Fall planting and overwintering most everything was a huge success!
One thing I am going to get better about doing is taking a general shot of my garden areas throughout the season. I took the above picture of the lower garden in mid-March but didn’t get one when everything else had really grown and exploded for springtime. I tend to take pictures of the plants closer-up, and I am kicking myself for that now as I look through photos.
This year’s plan was to have the entire lower garden planted with dahlias. 71 dahlias to be exact, since I finally knew why they weren’t thriving from the previous year (major nutrient deficiency). Sadly, I lost quite a few tubers at the beginning of the season. Here at the end of September, I am down to 48 in the lower garden. Granted, I planted out 28 seedlings as part of that total number, and I have culled a good handful of those, so that is part of it. But I had a lot of tubers rot despite pre-sprouting in pots and not having a lot of rain in early spring.
The weeds were running rampant in this area also, so I opted for a good quality weed fabric in the pathways and in the garden beds. I think this was a mistake and the black fabric cooked the tubers early on, causing some of them to rot. I should have covered with wheat straw to keep it cooler.
You can see in the picture above that I added a few more galvanized beds in the middle where my garden bench used to be. I still don’t have those filled with dirt yet. The picture below was taken at the beginning of September. The dahlias that did make it through the first month are doing great – fertilizer was a MUST! And I still think it could have used another application this summer. I am really trying to get better about fertilizing.
I went out this morning and snapped a picture of the lower garden after the remnants of Hurricane Helene went through our area. Thankfully no major damage here, but some of the dahlias are trying to flop over.
While I love dahlias more than any other flower, next year I am limiting the number I grow to one 4×8 bed and one 2×8 bed, 16 total. I hate having this whole area nothing but green until about mid to late August when the dahlias finally start blooming. I want color! I already have a layout and plan for next summer, so I am hoping to see it bursting with color by mid-June 2025.