Three seasons of gardening 2022

Share, Tweet, Pin!

For the past few years I’ve been working on building a walk-through garden in the sideyard between my house and garage, and this year I got a lot closer to that goal. I joined together two flower beds by the house that created an actual path flanked by beds on both sides, and started to fill the new joined bed with perennial plants. I added a beautiful cement statue to one of the beds, and for a backdrop I used a printed fabric shower curtain that features a scene from an “old world” villa. It looks amazing when photographed! I’ve done pretty well establishing perennials all over the property, and filling in with annuals where color was needed. Flowerbeds on either side of my front door also looked lush and healthy all season, and I had fresh mum and sunflower blooms as late as the first week of November. Here are a few photos from the garden this year!

Statuary in the new stroll-through garden. I think the shower curtain backdrop was a brilliant idea, shared by a friend over on Instagram!
My stroll-through area with gifted seating at the far end sits between the house and garage. This was right after adding the mulch to the new connected beds on the right – I began to fill in with plants shortly after, so next year it’s going to look full!
This bed near the front door did the best job of showing off color in all three seasons, thanks to the long-blooming Coreopsis “Moon Glow” at the back, Balloon Flower at the front, large hardy mums over to the left (not in bloom in this photo), and seasonally updated cement planters.
My “Knockout Rose” lived up to it name with gorgeous blooms in June, followed by an influx of Japanese Beetles in July, followed by a major cut-back and incredible re-bloom in Fall. The photo above is from October!

Here are a few “random bloom” shots just for fun…

Lobelia and bright pink petunias in a curb-picked 10-gallon vintage crock.
Tradescantia (Spiderwort) “Sweet Kate” – I planted three of these last year and they came back very strong!
Blush-pink peony “Sarah Bernhardt” – this one doubled in size from last year and had six gorgeous blooms this year!
Curb-picked statuary surrounded by Bachelors’ Buttons – all re-seeded from last year.
As the walk-through garden in back took shape, the view from the front steps became increasingly inviting!

One of the things I like about gardening in Iowa is that Winter is “break time.” I’m always ready for a rest both mentally and physically by October, and then by February I’m ready to get started again. I already have a “seed plan” for next year!

Share, Tweet, Pin!

This entry was posted in Gardening. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *