Starting Over: The Joys of a New Garden

When we moved back to the U.S. three years ago, we bought a house with a big grassy backyard, sloping down to a wooden fence along the property line. It was a great backyard, but other than a small flower bed off the (old) deck, there wasn’t much active “gardening” space. There was a walkway border garden out front and a few roses scattered around there, too, but that was it. After living in apartments in Rome for five years, we wanted to enjoy the outside — and I really wanted to garden again. Luckily, the spaces around our new house had great potential to become places of joy not just for us, but also for the local bees, butterflies, and birds. I won’t dwell on the chipmunks, squirrels–and for a short while, rabbits–who have also found great joy here, too. Who knew squirrels could climb up giant sunflowers and take the heads right off? I didn’t. Lesson learned, though; no giant sunflowers next year.

But I digress. The hope we had for our outdoor spaces–which we thought about for a year before getting started–included flower beds, an herb garden, a vegetable garden, and a couple patios to provide more gathering space. As they say, beware what you wish for, because what followed took three years and a LOT of work. But it kept us busy during COVID and beyond, when we were glad to have something productive to do during the weekends.

Original sale photo of the backyard, taken Summer 2019, six months before we bought the house.

Today we have 12 separate garden beds, including a pollinator garden that looks like a wild English border garden, an herb garden, a vegetable garden, a rose garden, and new areas for all the plants we moved around, plus many new ones. This required completely redoing the backyard, rethinking a lot of the front yard, and lots of digging, weeding, transplanting/planting, weeding, seed starting, weeding, and finger crossing that everything we shifted around (often more than once) would survive.

We started Phase 1 by taking out most of the grass in the back and terracing the sloping plot, with help–as we could not move tons of soil on our own, nor could we install all the hardscaping alone. We toyed with the idea of laying down the patios ourselves (as we’ve done in the past), but knew we did not have the skills to build retaining walls, nor the necessary time, seeing as we both have actual other jobs requiring our daily attention. And this was not a weekend task.

Once all soil was out and the hardscaping was in, our work began: filling it all in. But it was early September (autumn) by then, so mostly we transplanted things from around the front, back, and side yards, and made a list of the new plants that would go in next spring. The top bed in the first photo below would be the future Pollinator Garden (I had saved plants from the old flower bed before we redid the yard, so got a head start by putting those back into the new bed). The second level would become the Herb Garden (ready to be planted with some perennial herbs I had grown in fabric bags during the summer), and the bottom level (barely visible) would be the Vegetable Garden. These were the first three of the 12 garden beds we would put in (or redo) around the house!

Note the missing deck section in the first photo above; we replaced the old deck entirely in Phase 2–with help from our children, family, and friends; but mostly done solo by my husband all through Fall 2021.

Finished deck and hardscaping, early Spring 2022

Backyard terrace beds: Top = Pollinator Garden, Middle = Herb Garden, Bottom = Vegetable Garden

In the two top beds above were the “skeleton plants” we had in Spring 2021. I added other plants to fill out the Pollinator and Herb Gardens, and grew some veggies from seed for the vegetable garden, though I also bought some more mature plants to jump start the process a bit. Here’s how the terraced garden beds evolved:

And here are some photos of the front yard garden beds, which were part of Phase 3:

Below is what the front Walkway Garden looked like before (first photo taken while house was being painted). The bed was filled with yellow daylilies and magenta Campion Rose flowers, and I wanted to redo it from Day One. First, I am not fond of magenta and yellow as a color combination. As part of a riot of bold colors, yes, but not by themselves. Secondly, Campion Rose spreads everywhere. I needed to isolate it to a very small section of the yard. Thirdly, and most importantly, the Walkway Garden is in view of the Rose Garden, and I wanted to plant it with flowers that complemented the colors of the roses.

Here are some of the transplanted flowers that are happy in their new spots: 1) Spiky Giant Hyssop now along the southernmost part of the new deck, popping above the railings and attracting bees far and wide (though they are very friendly bees; I stick my head among the flowers to tie them up periodically, and the bees pay me no mind at all). 2) Panicle Hydrangea turning a dusty pink from its initial white, now in its third and final resting place, and 3) the yellow daylilies from the front yard, now in the back along with some Spiderwort ( a much more pleasing combination in my very biased opinion!).

Some of the many newcomers to the garden: Hollyhock, Allium Schubertii, Astilbe, Baptisia Australis, Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta), Aquilegia

And finally, a few things from the garden other than flowers:

Tags: flowers, garden design, hardscaping, herb garden, new garden, outdoor living, patios, perennials, planning a garden, pollinator garden, retaining walls, rose garden, starting a new garden, terraces, vegetable garden, Vegetables