Isn't it wild how much a space can shift and grow and change over only one season, let alone eight?
Let's Start at the Beginning. . .
When Arlen and I first moved into our house in the spring of 2018, the front yard was just like all the others in our neighborhood. A big expanse of grass, a few new bushes planted near the garage and under the windows near the front of the house. And as excited as I was to have a yard all my own, we didn't make any major changes to the front yard for at least one full year. Though that didn't stop me from dreaming.
By 2019, I started small, easing both myself and Arlen into the big picture dreams I had for the front yard. We expanded the “garden” in front of the garage ever so slightly, removed some of the old plantings that hadn't fared well since we'd arrived and put in some blackberry and raspberry bushes that I still have to this day. I may have scattered a handful of seeds in there as well, including out by the mailbox, which was only sporting a lone Japanese maple at the time.
By August of that year, our little garden had erupted into a flurry of activity, and I was ready to expand. I had dreams of turning at least half of our front yard into a proper garden, with boxes and all. But Arlen couldn't quite see the vision yet, so we compromised, and I began expanding and connecting the mailbox and garage garden, as well as the lone Eastern redbud I'd planted out in the middle of the yard.
When all was said and done, we both hated how the garden looked. So it was back to the drawing board. By 2020, we wound up rounding out everything in the yard, lining our new edges with thin bricks and sheet mulching the entire area only after digging out as much of the grass as we possibly could. And it looked nice, like really really nice.
I went to town planting everything I could imagine directly into the ground. That year, I remember growing squash and pumpkins and sunflowers and cabbages and zinnia. My gosh, the zinnias.
We decided to get married in our backyard that same year. And so later on, near November, we gave the entire yard a little refresh with some new mulch and a heavy dose of weeding.
By the following spring, we were ready to bring my full vision to life. We started by removing our old brick outline and straightening it while also kind of playing with different box configurations. We finally settled on an L-shaped box and got to work digging out the next segments of grass.
Now, we're all about repurposing every bit we can, especially in the garden. So, we actually brought all of that grass we dug up from the front yard into the backyard, and we replanted it in areas that were prone to flooding. This really helped to add organic matter and build up the soil so that it hardly ever floods in the backyard anymore unless there's an especially aggressive storm (the likes of which we have been experiencing more and more thanks to climate change).
We also installed two additional cattle panel trellises along the center walkway and we filled in the ground with mulch from a tree we had to take down that was straddling our yard and our neighbor's.
Side note: If you ever find that you need to cull a tree from your yard for whatever reason (it's dead or dying, it blocks the sun where you wish to plant a garden, or it poses a danger to you/ your home), ask the tree service guys if they can leave the mulch on your property so that you can reuse it in the garden. They have to mulch the tree before transporting it, and you're already paying for the service, so you might as well keep all that amazing organic matter on site to help feed your soil rather than having to go out and buy all new mulch in little plastic bags. We've done this every single time we have had a tree cut down (I think we have cut down a total of 6), and it has really transformed our land for the better.
To round off all of our big changes for 2021, I installed a super simple bamboo expandable fence to enclose our little berry patch (above, bottom right). This $15 fence held up surprisingly well. I only recently removed it and redid this area this year.
Arlen recently asked me what my favorite iteration of the garden has been over the years, and, without hesitation, I told him it our garden in 2022. I was still recovering from my surgery the year before and was dealing with a lot of chronic pain in my left abdomen. I hadn't yet cut ties with my parents, but the thought had begun to take shape, and I'd recently begun writing my very first novel. 2022 was a busy, life-changing kind of year in more ways than one. And the garden was where I found solace. It's where I rediscovered joy. It's where I managed to connect to something greater than myself, greater than the pain I'd been experiencing both emotionally and physically. The garden was where I rediscovered myself. And I truly didn't do much that year. Almost everything that grew did so from seeds that had simply fallen from plants I'd never cleared away the year before. Yet there was a verifiable bounty. We picked strawberries and lettuce and chives while the butterflies feasted themselves silly on our zinnias bursting forth in great zings of color. It was truly a special year.
Now 2023 to 2025 were a bit of a blur garden wise. I don't actually have very many photos of the front garden during that time. We were more focused on inside the home projects like building out the library, aka our guest room, and we'd welcomed not one but two new cats into our lives. I was still navigating chronic pain and no longer speaking with my parents. And then there was the publication of my first novel, and I started transitioning my business into what it is today, which honestly is still a work in progress.
Needless to say, there was a lot going on in those two years that kept my focus split and often away from the garden. Things still happened, projects still cropped up, but it wasn't as focused or as intense as it had been prior to 2022.
And yet, the garden continued to do its thing.
The peach trees bloomed and gifted us our first beautiful crop of peaches. So many, we were practically begging our neighbors to please take them off our hands. We picked more strawberries than we knew what to do with and same for snap peas.
Now, we did wind up laying a brick path in the front yard somewhere during all that time. Those particular memories remain intact, sharp as ever. I can still feel the sun singeing my back as sweat drips down the sides of my face. I can still hear Arlen and I trying to giddily coax a turtle we found wandering around to peek its head outside of its shell. And I can still feel the crisp, refreshing breeze swoop through periodically, reminding me to take my time to simply focus on the next brick and then the next.
And then suddenly looking up to find that the pathway was complete, and so was our garden.
Of course, a garden is never truly completed, is it? We are still working through things to this day. Replacing old, broken down garden beds. Moving trellises as the sun shifts and our trees fill out. Weeding the pathways so we have space to walk. Honestly, weeding takes up the majority of out time spent outside these days (this rain has been great for growth of all kinds!). Not to mention, we are currently stewarding three different gardens, all around out house. Plus a wooded area beyond the confines of the gates we inherited.
Oftentimes the work, or the size of the task is daunting and I find myself succumbing to feelings of overwhelm at watching the seasons roll past me from beyond my office window. But in looking back over the past eight years at the tiny subsect that is our front yard garden, I am reminded that nature is toiling away, with ot without my intervention. Bees are still gathering nectar. Earthworms are still aerating the soil. Trees are sending their roots deep and wide. And the sun continues to shine down on it all, allowing the plants to flourish in every little nook and cranny.
There will be time for me to rejoin their efforts in stewarding this parcel of land I call my own. There is always time. I can jump back in at any time and get right back to work. And isn't that a beautiful thing?