Are you planning big changes, or minor tweaks to a working system? Are there new-to-you plants you’re excited to try your hand at? Let’s share our dreams and goals and inspire each other!
Are you planning big changes, or minor tweaks to a working system? Are there new-to-you plants you’re excited to try your hand at? Let’s share our dreams and goals and inspire each other!
One of my main goals which I have had for years now is to fill in the dirt patch in my lawns on my hill and on my dog running path. Each year it decreases slightly with my constant seeding of grasses and clover covered with straw. I hope this year I get more finished and the great plantain that I throw on it will break up the soil compaction to fill in any gaps that grasses and clover don’t get a hold of. I had some good luck with clover and grasses in the sun dried spot over the last years so hopefully all gaps are getting covered with a low maintenance bee lawn.
I planted self heal and English daisies from Flawn over my already White Dutch Clover filled lawn in the late fall in the front and side lawns which have been neglected. So hopefully I can see some of those sprouting and possibly get some flowers.
I want to try to harvest some more of my forage edibles from my yard and not miss the edible window. I have missed my window for ostrich fern fiddleheads two years now but this year I will grab some to eat. I did get some milkweed stems which I ate so hopefully I can get that again. I want to get my chokecherries in the fall but have missed that as well. I will try some of the other volunteers in my garden including the Mullein that came up.
Hopefully my wildflower garden by my alley has some of the perennials I planted two falls ago start blooming instead of just the black-eyed susans. I love them but they are early pioneer species until the coneflowers, early sunflowers, bee balms, purple prairie clover, etc. come in their own this year. I want to try to harvest some of these for teas, tinctures and salves along with my chamomile, calendula, anise hyssop and yarrow in my tea garden along with my traditional garden herbs of mint, lemon balm and sage.
The real goal is getting some cut flowers to grow by starting a lot of them by seed early spring. We have tried for two years to get marigolds, snap dragons, cosmos and zinnias to grow by direct seeding with little to no success. I want to get some started to they can self seed. We did some sheet composting in a previous overgrown weedy section for a Dahlia garden this year. So hopefully that comes along.
I guess I have a lot of plans for the next year. I might be too ambitious seeing it all written out. But I want to try to keep a garden journal maybe with a garden pixelfeed account so I can better track what I do and what I see throughout the year. I think it will be fun and help with my planning and foraging for years to come.
I’m in love with your plans and goals! Something that’s resisted a lot of wear from our dog’s circuits has been wild violets, and we’re seeing more clovers volunteering in those patches alongside them.
It sounds like just the right amount of ambition to me, I’m hopeful you’ll see great results and will share them with us here!
I’ve been trying to get wild violets in my yard for the last few years. I got some seeds two years ago that didn’t sprout very well. I did plant some bareroot pink violets which I hope come back and start spreading. They are common wild violets in my neighborhood and I keep hoping they volunteer in the yard since we don’t put any herbicides anywhere.
We’ve had good experiences transplanting them during the early part of the growing season, maybe someone nearby would let you take a clump or three to get you started. They can spread pretty prolifically from a start like that. I haven’t noticed them spreading seed very far, but their roots will spread them out readily.
I will try this spring to transplant some. There are tons along the weedy sections that people don’t care about. I will try to get some in my yard. I know the seeds of violets don’t spread that far so transplants is a good option.