setting up a living garden

Moonfairye's tips on setting up a garden

Anybody with a space for a garden is blessed, for he can be close to nature whenever he wants, whenever it is convenient. But to feel comfortable in your Garden, you have to make it comfortable.

Think of your property as a house without walls or roof. Start imagining a living space, think of the areas as rooms you may need, the utility room, the relaxation room, the growing room, the playroom for the kids, maybe an "orchard"?
The walls will be bushes, a hedge, the roof will be trees. Start with the layout, then do one room at a time.
A Garden is never really done. You will always add or take away, redecorate so to say. But it is so much joy, to see the plants grow, to see the animals move in. Birds, butterflies and fairies will come into every Garden, lizards, snakes and turtles are regional of course.

The front yard is your entrance. Get rid of high bushes, so called foundation plantings, they just hide the house. Keep the accent plants in size relating with the house. How about a bench or a small fountain for the front yard? Step across the street and try to look at it with the eyes of a stranger.
Make it inviting for your guests, the front yard gives the first and a lasting impression to them.

If you like to grow your own herbs and vegetables, you should consider the convenience to get to the "growing room" from the kitchen, this is also where the compost for garden waste and kitchen scraps should be located. Maybe on the side of the house by the garage side door. You can combine the growing area and the utility area, have a workbench and a little garden shed there for your garden tools, pots and potting soil.
Prepare a patch for your herbs and veggies, surround it with bricks, steppingstones, or wood, to keep the grass from growing in and the soil from washing away.
Separate this side area from the rest of the garden with some bushes, add maybe an ornamental garden gate or an archway.

A Garden is not finished until you have water in it. Running water and still water.Not everybody has an Estate with a stream and a lake, but no matter how big or small, there is always room for a pond with an integrated small waterfall. That should become your relaxing room. If you want it secluded, it may fit next to the screened in porch, so you already have two sides, the house and the porch, or maybe in the corner of the yard, with a row of hedge plants as two sides. On the third side plant some bigger bushes, to be the backdrop for your pond, and the front side, the entrance leave open or close up with a few well placed bushes or tall ornamental grasses and maybe have an archway.
Of course you will need a sitting possibility.
By the way, a well set up pond requires hardly any work at all. Some maintenance, like feeding the fish, picking out dead leaves you do automatically when you visit this room. And the initial design and building is fun. I will tell you more about that, soon.

Place accents in your Garden.
Hide a statue in a corner, try it! it is fun, to walk around and find hidden "treasures".
How about a sundial, or a terracotta wall plaque.
Place a birdbath so you can see it for example from your breakfast nook, and maybe a birdfeeder. Birds are fun to have around, and they will come if you offer them water and food. By the way, squirrels love dried corn on the cob.

Make a butterfly room.
Plant a bed with bushes and flowers that grow in your location to attract them, also plant
plants for their caterpillars, like dillweed and carrots. These plants are typically "wild" looking, so if you have a formal English garden setup they won't fit, but some well placed bushes will hide that wild corner. These plants are low maintenance, like butterfly bush or milkweed, cut them back once or twice a year and they are happy. A stone bench, or chairs and a small table will invite you to sit, relax, sip a cup of coffee or a glass of iced tea and watch the butterflies dance happily in the sunlight.

Make a Garden to fit your lifestyle.
If you don't want to work every Saturday in the yard, don't plant high maintenance plants. Also, don't buy plants that will outgrow their location, it means you have to cut cut cut all the time. Surround all the plants with well rounded, well-mulched beds. No harsh corners make it much easier to mow the grass around.
And do start a garden journal. Take it once a month and walk through your garden and write down what you notice, which flowers bloom, how the fish are doing, what butterflies are visiting, what veggies do good and not so good. It is fun to look back, and good to have, if you are not sure anymore, when that black Iris was in bloom, or what month you can expect to have the showy Cattleya in bloom. I also take pictures and tack them on the pages.